Papa Lion, Mama Snake
by Sherza
Summary: Septimus Weasley and Cedrella Weasley nee Black are Arthur Weasley's parents. This is their story. Follow them through their lives and see how things change when two people refuse to turn a blind eye to all the horror, death, and pain Grindelwald, Voldemort and manipulative old men can cause.
1. The Princess and the Farm Boy

The Princess and The Farm Boy

A/N: Disclaimer: Ain't mine and never will be. I make no money from this. Don't sue!

1922, Black Manor

Cedrella sat in the child-sized chair in the room that had long ago been converted into a small schoolroom. There were a number of small chairs and tables for writing on, a blackboard, several bookshelves filled with books, and a number of illustrations and portraits on the walls, all relating to various subjects the scions of the Black Family would learn in this room. Cedrella watched Callidora out of the corner of her eye, trying her best to imitate her big sister's erect, prim posture. She did not want to present a poor first impression to their tutor. Her cousin Cassiopeia sat on the far side of Callidora in a similar posture.

At five, Cedrella was finally considered old enough to begin her formal education. There was much for her to learn before she attended Hogwarts in six years' time. Her nanny had ensured that she knew her letters and numbers, and had an educated vocabulary and proper pronunciation. Now, she would begin to learn her family history, the history of the magical world, Latin, magical theory, pureblood etiquette and tradition, dancing, and the art of conversation among other things.

At least, that was what Mother and Father had told her she would learn, now that she was old enough. It was a slightly intimidating list for the five-year-old. However, Cedrella had learned practically from birth that as a scion of the Black family, she was a cut above the average pureblood witch or wizard. They were thus, by necessity, held to a higher standard than the common masses. Their Family was to be the example that all others strove to emulate. As such, it ill befit a scion of the Family to perform poorly in any arena.

Their tutor, Professor Parkinson, swept into the room, and Callidora and Cassiopeia immediately greeted her. "Good morning, Professor Parkinson."

Cedrella echoed her sister and cousin a moment later, when she realized the greeting was required. She, of course, had met the Professor before. The Professor was in the mansion almost daily, so encounters were all but inevitable. Cedrella knew her to be daughter of a younger son of Family Parkinson, and a fairly distant relative - it had been several generations since a Black had married a Parkinson at this point.

"Good morning, students." Professor Parkinson said, eyeing the three girls. "Greetings, Cedrella. And congratulations on taking your first step to becoming a true scion of the Black Family."

"Thank you, Professor." Cedrella said.

"Today, we will be reviewing Latin conjugations. You must drill until the knowledge becomes second nature." That last comment seemed to be directed at Cassiopeia, who had briefly looked less than pleased at the prospect. "Many spells are performed in Latin, and some of those that are not have Latin roots. A thorough knowledge of the language will give you a firm grasp on the effects of most spells you encounter without having to have them explained to you." Then, in a firmer, more displeased tone. "You must control yourself, Cassiopeia. Allowing those around you to perceive how you feel about something allows them to tailor a strategy to manipulate and use you to their own benefits. You must be in control of your demeanor at all times in public. The less ammunition you give an opponent, the stronger your own position."

"Yes Professor." Cassiopeia said, managing a creditably neutral tone and expression.

There followed an hour of drill in Latin. Cedrella had to scramble a bit to keep up, as her sister and cousin were well ahead of her in this regard. Actually, she had to scramble a bit in all their lessons due to the two year age difference between them. But she was determined to succeed, and outshine them both.

1922, Weasley Cottage

Early mornings were about the only time Septimus had to work on his schoolwork. This was thanks mostly to his two little brothers, not that Septimus minded. They were active little scamps and needed close supervision - when they weren't dragging an almost-always willing Septimus into some game or other. He liked that he was allowed to help out by keeping an eye on Victor and Felix now. He liked that his parents considered him grown up enough for that sort of responsibility.

His mother and father both taught him in the evening, and on weekends. Dad had even begun teaching Septimus everything he'd need to know as the future Head of the Weasley family. There was an awful lot to learn, but Septimus didn't mind. He found most of it very interesting.

He just managed to finish the writing assignment mom had given him last night when he heard the rest of the family stirring awake. Septimus put his books away and went to help his little brothers get ready for the day. That allowed mother and father a chance to wake and get ready for the day themselves at a normal pace, rather than having to rush.

He'd just managed to get Felix, who at two was far more tractable, into some clothes before mother arrived to argue with Victor. Victor, at four, was at the age where he wanted to dress himself. As a result, he argued about what clothes he would wear and fought off assistance, despite still needing it.

While mother dealt with Victor, Septimus headed down to the kitchen and out to the yard. They raised chickens and pigs, both for their own use and to sell pork and eggs at the nearby Muggle village. It was his responsibility to feed them, and in the case of the chickens, hunt down eggs for breakfast every morning. It was a matter of a few minutes to search the most likely spots in the yard. Septimus came away with nearly a dozen eggs from the various nests. He then scattered some left-over bread crusts and grain for the chickens' breakfast and headed inside. The pigs would be fed after breakfast.

Mother had gotten Victor dressed and was in the kitchen by the time Septimus finished with the chickens. She took the small basket full of eggs from him almost automatically. "Thank you, Septimus." She said, and ruffled his hair. Septimus grinned, then headed to the cabinets to set the table.

"Did you have any trouble with the assignment your mom gave you?" Septimus' father asked as he arrived downstairs. He was dressed in a formal robe, an indication that he'd be spending the day at the Ministry, wrangling with the Wizengamot. Father knew that Septimus preferred to get his assignments done the night or morning after they were handed out if at all possible.

"No. I got it done already." Septimus said with a grin. "Just finished it before Vic and Felix woke up."

His father gave him a pleased look. "Well done."

Mother echoed the praise. "I'll take a look at it before lunch, dear." She told him. "Though I'm sure it's your usual good work."

Once breakfast was over, Septimus collected the leftovers from their plates and threw it in the trough for the pigs to eat, along with the scraps from last night's supper and some other contributions that Septimus collected from the village. Father ruffled Septimus' hair affectionately as they crossed paths when father headed to the Ministry. Septimus helped his mother tidy the main areas of the house, then headed outside with Felix and one of his books to read for a while. He kept an eye on Felix while he played. Mother, meanwhile, worked with Victor on his letters and numbers for a while. When Victor was released from his lessons so that mother could prepare lunch, Septimus kept an eye on both brothers for a little bit.

After lunch, Septimus headed over to the nearest village. He did chores for some of the elderly residents, earning himself a few coins of Muggle money in the process. The goblins were happy to exchange it for sickles and knuts, so it provided a steady, if small, allowance for Septimus. Mostly, he saved it. He had quite a tidy pile of sickles and knuts tucked in a corner of his parents' vault at Gringotts after a year's worth of helping out wherever he could.

1924

Cedrella walked sedately beside her mother as they entered Diagon Alley. After two years of tuition, Cedrella had been judged worthy of attending the yearly Children's Ball. The Ball, which took place every summer, was an event that allowed the pre-Hogwarts age pureblood children to intermingle and get to know one another.

The Ball was also traditionally a child's first entrance into Wizarding society and the end of toddlerhood. Prior to attending the Ball, a child was considered too young to be accountable for their actions. From that point on, pureblood children were held accountable for their actions, and their actions could and did have ramifications on the Family as a whole.

For such an august occasion, the proper dress robe was required. The requisite visit to Diagon Alley was as much a reward as the Ball itself. No pureblood child of proper breeding was allowed out in public until they were judged worthy of attending the Ball. It was sudden death for the reputations of the parents if a pureblood toddler did something as gauche as throw a temper tantrum in public. Such a thing showed the parents inferior in their ability to raise and instruct their child. The vast majority of pureblood parents therefore ensured their children remained home until they were old enough to control themselves. Only the poorest families or those rare few who didn't follow tradition brought infants and toddlers out in public.

As it was early October, Diagon Alley was fairly quiet. It certainly wasn't the bustling thoroughfare it became in late August thanks to the beginning of the school year. Cedrella's mother led her to Twillfit and Tattings. They spent the better part of three hours conferring with Mr. Twillfit as to the proper robe and color for Cedrella, and having her model various combinations of color, cut, and fabrics. Cedrella decided the robe they chose, a royal blue with silver piping on sleeves, neckline and hem, was quite smart. It was pretty without being ostentatious, which Cedrella approved of. She was a Black. She had no need to draw attention to herself.

Septimus straightened the hem of his second-hand dress robe, then flooed to Longbottom Manor, where the Ball was being held this year. It rotated among the homes of the well-to-do purebloods, so that no one family got all the recognition and attention that resulted from hosting the Ball.

Septimus had been attending the Ball since shortly after his seventh birthday two years ago. He'd gotten to know quite a few of the boys near his age. Some, he was not happy to know, like Abraxas Malfoy. That boy was a right bastard and a half, and it had nothing to do with the fact that his family Sorted Slytherin and the Weasleys Sorted Gryffindor. Abraxas was just … slimy, and rude, and uppity. He had begun attending the Ball last year and not made a good impression. Septimus wasn't looking forward to dealing with him for the next few Balls and then for years in Hogwarts.

The Longbottom and Potter scions, on the other hand, were far more Septimus' speed, despite them both being well beyond what Septimus knew to be his social station. They were both friendly, easygoing and not at all stuck up. Neither one of them disdained hanging out with him, which all too many kids did, seeing the Weasleys as a lesser Family of little to no consequence, which was more than slightly irksome, and something Septimus hoped to change someday.

He greeted Lord Longbottom and his wife, then headed into the ballroom. There were already half dozen kids there other than the Longbottom scion, so Septimus walked over to chat. About five minutes later, the Black family arrived more or less en masse. There were three girls Lucretia, Cassiopeia, and Callidora, between two branches of the Black Family. Pollux, the only confirmed male of the generation had already started Hogwarts. Septimus had heard whispers that there had been a second boy at one point, but no one had ever seen him, so Septimus figured it was just talk.

Because he was talking to a few of the other boys, it took him a moment to realize there was an additional girl in the Black gaggle. He ran the list of girls in that Family through his head, and after a few moments, figured her for Cedrella, the middle daughter of the youngest son. The age was about right, anyway. Sure enough, when she was escorted their way about ten minutes later by Callidora, she was introduced as Cedrella.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady." Septimus said, smiling down at the younger girl. "I am Septimus Weasley, Heir Apparent to House Weasley."

"A pleasure." Cedrella responded, and offered her hand.

Septimus bent over her hand briefly with a flourish and a smile. "Might I have the honor of your first dance?" He asked. He didn't really want to … she *was* a Black after all – that Family was nearly as bad as the Malfoys, in Septimus' books. They were Dark as it got, and had been pretty much since the dawn of time. Still, it was required for him to offer.

"It would please me to dance with you, Milord." Cedrella said.

There was something in her tone that told him she was about as thrilled at having to give that response as he'd been to have to ask. Unfortunately, unless one of them had committed a serious gaffe, there was no polite way to get out of this. Ah well. Septimus would make the best of it. He'd only have to deal with her this year and next at the Balls, after all. Then he'd be at Hogwarts. They'd never socialize again after that.


	2. Septimus At Hogwarts

Septimus at Hogwarts

Weasley Cottage/Hogwarts 1926

Septimus woke long before the sun on the first of August after his tenth birthday. Today was the day his mom and dad had promised to take him shopping for his Hogwarts gear. He spent the extra hour or so he had to himself wondering what Hogwarts would be like. Oh, he'd heard all his parents' tales about their own school days of course but hearing about it was different from living it, he was sure.

Eventually, his brothers started waking up. As had become habit since he was seven, Septimus headed over to help Victor and Felix, now seven and five respectively, get ready for the day. Three years ago, he'd added another brother, Bilius, to that list.

Septimus was old and big enough now that he didn't need his mother's help to wrestle Bilius and Felix, who liked to dress themselves, into appropriate clothes for the day. Especially not when he had Victor helping him, now. Victor had also started learning Septimus' chores in anticipation of Septimus being gone most of the year as of September.

As a result, both boys headed outside to hunt for eggs and feed the chickens. That done, they trooped inside to help set the table. After breakfast, Victor, Felix and Bilius were sent to their grandparents' house for the day. Victor was old enough to go to Diagon Alley without causing problems but since this was a Hogwarts related trip and not general shopping, he was being left behind.

The change in Diagon from its usual quiet startled Septimus. There were kids and parents everywhere, most of whom Septimus didn't recognize, which marked them as Muggles and their Muggleborn children. Septimus also noticed more than a few pureblood families in the mix who looked as if they had smelled something rather foul. He shook his head. Bullies and idiots, the lot of them.

Their first stop was to Gringotts of course. It was no small matter of pride to Septimus that he now had almost ten galleons in his parents' vault. Every knut of it had been earned helping elderly muggles in the nearby village over the last five years. His father had begun to teach him about investment in the last year. Septimus planned to continue hoarding and adding to that tiny nest egg until he was grown. It wasn't much, but it was at least a start, and Dad said it showed that Septimus had a lot of promise as the future Head of the Family.

Their first, most important and most expensive stop was Ollivander's. This, Septimus had looked forward to since he was old enough to understand what a wand was. The sheer array of wands he was introduced to in the next twenty minutes boggled his mind. Ollivander had stuck to wands similar to what had been matched to his family in the past – the Weasleys were remarkably consistent in their familial temperaments and personalities, so what worked for one tended to work for others. It was only after the most obvious choices of wands hadn't responded that Ollivander had begun pulling out other options. Eventually, Ollivander proffered a blackthorn wand. The rush of magic that resulted the moment the wand touched Septimus' hand blew everyone's robes tight against their legs. Septimus was slightly disappointed that there wasn't a shower of color, which seemed to be a frequent result of a match, but the slightly wide-eyed look on his parents' faces made up for that lack.

The rest of the trip went more smoothly, as the three of them went from store to store, carefully choosing the best of the secondhand items available. Unlike most of the rest of the purebloods, Septimus' father did not disdain giving the Muggles and their children assistance in making sense of where to go and what to buy. As a result, Septimus ended up spending far more time in Flourish and Blotts than they'd had any right to expect, as they'd gone to that shop about the same time as a group of Muggleborns and their families. One of them had asked about books about the wizarding world, and Septimus and his father both had ended up helping not just that particular Muggleborn but most of the rest in the shop at the time to find the best books to explain things and supplement the school books. Septimus found their interest in and curiosity about the magical world charming. Several of the Muggleborns tagged along behind Septimus and his parents to the other shops after that, so Septimus ended up talking to them quite a bit.

Hogwarts, it turned out, was everything his parents had claimed it to be, and so much more. Seeing it for the first time on the boat ride across the lake left Septimus as much in awe as the other kids in his boat, all of whom were Muggleborns he'd decided to sit with on the train.

While he knew that the Sorting was not dangerous or painful, Septimus was still anxious about it. He didn't want to disappoint his parents and umpity generations of Weasleys by becoming the first one to be Sorted somewhere other than Gryffindor. That would be embarrassing to say the least, and cause no end of comment. Though the reaction wouldn't be too bad for Hufflepuff, he didn't think. Most people who knew him knew he had a strong work ethic, so Hufflepuff wouldn't be a horribly unsuitable second choice if there had to be one. Just as long as he didn't get a reputation for being a bookworm or worse, a *dark wizard*. He shuddered in horror at the probable reaction if a Weasley ever got sorted Slytherin.

They were met by the Transfiguration teacher and Gryffindor Head of House, Professor Dumbledore. He seemed to be a genial, easy-going man, which relieved some of Septimus' anxiety. Fortunately for the rest of it, when it was finally his turn to be Sorted, the Hat was fairly quick to decide on Gryffindor, though it speculated briefly on Hufflepuff – and made a comment about him having more cunning than expected. That comment had scared nearly a year's growth off of Septimus, and made him yell at the hat. Fortunately, not aloud. He was reasonably sure that he'd had the nerve to yell at the hat had been the deciding factor, though he never admitted that to anyone.

He soon discovered that for all he'd been learning Latin and magical theory since he was five, he didn't have much of a head start on the Muggleborns. He was, however, irritated to discover that many of the Slytherin purebloods had what seemed like entire libraries of spells they could cast from the first day, indicating their parents had been giving them tutelage they shouldn't have been getting yet.

There was a reason that serious magical education didn't start until kids were eleven. Until then the vast majority of childrens' magical cores weren't developed enough to handle the strain put on them by serious, concentrated training. Only the kids who would eventually become very powerful adults were really ready prior to that point. It was entirely possible to do damage to your magical core if you weren't very careful. Granted, Septimus was betting the parents of the Slytherins probably only had their kids memorize the pronunciation and wand movement prior to that last year before Hogwarts and not casting magic, but still. They were taking awful chances even at that.

He worked hard all year, and it paid off. He came away with E's and O's in every class, though managing the E in History of Magic had been an unexpected trial. Binns could put anyone to sleep, which made it difficult to know what assignment he'd set. To be honest, Septimus wasn't entirely sure Binns *graded* their assignments. Ghosts couldn't affect the living world aside from making the temperature drop if enough of them were gathered in one place, or giving someone the shivers if they accidentally put part of themselves through a ghost. He supposed that someone else must grade Binns' assignments, though who that could be he couldn't guess.

He'd made a number of good friends. There were eight boys in his year in Gryffindor, evenly split between Muggleborns and Purebloods. The purebloods were himself, the Potter heir, the Longbottom heir and a Prewitt scion. He made friends with all his roommates, though he got along with Potter and Longbottom the best of the lot. He also made friends with all of the second-year Gryffindor boys (there were seven of them), some of the first and second year Hufflepuff boys, and a single Ravenclaw who had proven to not be an anti-social bookworm. He was, not incidentally, one of the Muggleborns that Septimus and his family had assisted in Diagon Alley. The only House not represented, even tangentially, was Slytherin. That was more the fault of the individual kids in that House than to House rivalries or prejudices, as the Hufflepuffs didn't have anywhere near the antagonistic relationship with that House that Gryffindor did, and were thus more likely to befriend the more tolerable Slytherins.

At the end of the year, they all promised to stay in touch. The Muggleborns had even taught the Purebloods in the group how to send Muggle mail, since owls flying about would get noticed sooner rather than later in the Muggle world.

Summer was almost a relief for Septimus. Oh, he'd spent Christmas and Easter with his family of course, but a week or so wasn't near enough. He'd missed them all terribly. He probably spoiled his brothers more than he really ought to have, playing with them and indulging their more harmless whims. It resulted in a number of sleepovers in his room the first few weeks after he got back, but he didn't mind.

He invited the friends he'd made over. The Muggleborns all seemed thrilled to be inside their first ever magical house. Hogwarts, while magical, didn't count in that regard, an opinion expressed by several of Septimus' Muggleborn friends, so he decided to take their word for it. The Ravenclaw in the bunch asked his parents a bunch of questions that Septimus hadn't been able to answer during the year. He took some small measure of comfort from the fact that the questions seemed to startle and/or stymie his parents. It made him feel less of a dunce when they were caught out like that.

The Muggleborns reciprocated the invitation, which Septimus was only too happy to accept. He was sad, however, to discover that he was the only pureblood in their group comfortable with mucking about in the Muggle world. The others, while willing to try it, had looked like kneazles in a crup farm. Which is to say highly uncomfortable and very out of place. That said, they did their best to learn to blend in, and had made significant inroads towards that goal by summer's end.

Second year proved to be both easier and more difficult than first year. Easier in that he was used to being away from home, now, and had some idea of what the teachers expected from him both scholastically and behaviorally. Not that he'd deliberately caused trouble his first year, but there'd been a few close calls and some lost points along the way.

He'd been tempted, briefly, to try out for the Quidditch team. But after some thought, he decided that while he loved the game, it would take up too much of his time. If he was going to have any chance of making something of himself, of turning the Weasley Family's fortunes around, he needed to concentrate on his classes, not on Quidditch plays and practice.

Classes were harder in that they were, of course, delving into more difficult subjects than they'd faced in First Year. Septimus discovered that he seemed to have a talent for Defense Against the Dark Arts. The subject matter made sense to him, and he tended to pick up the counters to hexes, jinxes, and curses that were the year's subject pretty quickly.

There was a bit of a dustup, Septimus' second year, between some of the older Slytherins and Gryffindors. Septimus never did learn what it had all been about, but it had to have been pretty bad. It had resulted in drawn wands and more than one curse fired in the heat of the moment. It had also resulted in a month-long siege between the two Houses, carefully disguised as 'pranks'. The older students were fine, but the Firsties and his year caught the worst of it. There were a lot of bruises, strains, and broken bones from unexpected tumbles, ruined school supplies, ruined or missing homework, and rather vicious 'prank' hexes. Septimus frequently found himself chasing off Slytherins from the Gryffindor Firsties, and as such was a frequent victim of Slytherin excesses and visitor to the Infirmary.

He mostly took those lumps with pride. He couldn't just stand aside and let them terrorize little kids who didn't know any magic to fight back with. All he had to do was imagine Victor, Felix, or Bilius in the Firsties' places and he had no problem blacking a few eyes in the name of justice.


	3. Cedrella At Hogwarts

Cedrella at Hogwarts

Black Manor/Hogwarts 1928

The morning of the first day of August, 1928 found Cedrella Black in her room. She had moved out of the communal room she'd shared with Charis the same week she'd attended her first Children's Ball. After all, once she was attending the Ball, she was no longer considered a toddler in need of constant supervision. At that point, she was no longer confined to the Children's Wing of the Manor, and sharing a bedroom was both unnecessary and unseemly.

In the privacy of her room, Cedrella permitted herself to express her dismay at the day's impending event. She had no desire whatever to go to Diagon Alley. Not when it was going to be lousy with Muggles and their spawn. Muggles, she had been told, were nothing but ignorant savages, and their magical spawn were no better. Up to now, Cedrella had never (knowingly) met so much as a half-blood, never mind any lesser creature.

Unfortunately, there was nothing for it. Some of the Diagon Alley shops did not begin to stock and sell Hogwarts equipment until the first of August. Ollivander, while he sold wands year-round to adults who needed a replacement wand, point-blank refused to sell wands to underage witches or wizards except in August. The same was true of the apothecary. They sold ingredients year-round, but the Hogwarts kits were only available in August. Of course, that could be gotten around by purchasing the items individually, but it was an unnecessary bother.

The only shops that sold Hogwarts things year-round were Madam Malkin and the cauldron shop. Both sold year 'round because children grew, and new robes could be required at any point in the year thanks to a growth spurt, and replacement cauldrons could be required at any point in the year thanks to a disastrous accident.

Having given vent to her dismay, Cedrella gathered her things and went to perform her morning ablutions. That accomplished, she headed downstairs. Her parents were both up and already at the dining table, conversing quietly. Cedrella settled herself silently at her place at the table. Moments later, a plate full of her favorite breakfast foods appeared, as did a goblet of pumpkin juice.

She had just picked up her fork – breakfasts were an informal affair in their house, meaning she did not have to wait for her father to officially begin the meal – when her sisters arrived. They similarly sat down at the table in silence, knowing better than to interrupt their parents. Moments after they were seated, plates of food and goblets of juice appeared before them.

They had almost finished breakfast before their parents were done talking among themselves.

"Callidora, Cedrella, we will be leaving for Diagon Alley in two hours." Father announced.

"Yes, Father." Cedrella and Callidora chorused.

"I know that being forced to mingle with lesser creatures will be unpleasant, Cedrella." Father continued. "But this must be endured. Consider it a trial run for your years in Hogwarts, when you will be surrounded by the creatures for months on end."

Cedrella mentally made a face, though she made sure her distaste did not show in face or voice. "Yes, Father."

An hour and a half later, Cedrella retreated to her room once more to choose an outfit to go to Diagon Alley in. She chose one of her more conservatively cut robes as both armor against the lesser creatures and a visual cue that would set her apart from their uncouth, uneducated masses. The robe had a high neck, and fitted sleeves that were mostly concealed beneath a fuller outer sleeve. The bodice, like the sleeves, was double-layered, one that was snug against the body and another cut more fully to largely conceal what the under layer covered. The skirt was made of a heavy material and cut in such a way as to prevent any accidental exposure of one's legs if the wind was blowing strongly, since a more form-fitting under layer was impractical. The under layer, which was visible at throat and wrists, was a deep charcoal gray. The outer, concealing layer was a lovely lilac color.

Once appropriately dressed, she headed downstairs. She nearly laughed when she realized that Callidora was dressed in a robe virtually identical to her own, save for the color of the fabrics. Callidora's was a more sharply differentiated black under layer and sea blue outer layer. It made her feel somewhat better that Callidora found it necessary to wear a sort of armor when dealing with the lesser creatures.

It was a sore test of her control when Father and Mother appeared a few moments later in similarly conservative attire. Mother was in a grown-up version of the same robe that Cedrella and Callidora were wearing. Hers had a pale, silvery gray under layer and a deep forest green outer layer. Father was wearing the men's version: A white, high-collared, long-sleeved shirt under a very dark (almost black) purple vest, which was under an identically colored high-collared overcoat. He also wore black trousers and knee-length black boots. Over all this was a sleeveless black open-fronted robe.

"Callidora, go with your mother. Cedrella, I will take you." Father commanded.

Immediately the two girls moved to their assigned parents. Moments later they were side-along apparated to a corner of Diagon Alley set aside for such travel. Cedrella was thankful she had long since become accustomed to the uncomfortable sensations involved in side-along apparating.

She was also glad Father had been the one to take her to the Alley, because the immense crowds and racket were rather alarming. It was probably not all that seemly to hide behind her father's bulk, but Cedrella did it anyway, giving the flood of strangers a leery look from behind that sanctuary.

Unexpectedly, Father neither brought her to task for her momentary timidity, nor did he move away. He stayed where he was and allowed Cedrella to regain her equilibrium. After a few breaths, Cedrella managed exactly that and stepped away from her father a bit.

"Forgive me, Father. I was momentarily indisposed." Cedrella said.

"Quite all right, Cedrella. It is understandable, under the circumstances." Father told her. "Now, we shall go to Ollivander's first, then the trunk shop. Then Madam Malkin's, I think. Best to get there before the day is too far gone. Madam's temper will be frayed later in the day, after having had to deal with so many."

Cedrella nodded her acceptance of that itinerary, and they departed from the apparation point. Cedrella quickly found it was easiest to walk directly behind her father, allowing his larger, more intimidating figure to cut a path through the crowds rather than attempting to forge one for herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Callidora doing the same with their mother. And even Mother had aligned herself so that she was close enough to benefit from the path Father was cutting through the crowd. She merely forced the crowds to part a bit further, rather than forging a path of her own.

Cedrella could not help but observe the crowds. There were children everywhere, of course. Most of them behaving in the most appalling manner she'd ever seen. Father and Mother would have put her on punishment for *months* if she were ever to behave in such a manner in the privacy of their own home, never mind in public! Had these beasts neither pride nor shame, that they comported themselves so poorly?

Eventually, they made it to Ollivander's. Fortunately, he was between customers when they arrived, allowing them both privacy and his undivided attention. Mother and Callidora stood near the door, waiting to see what wand chose Cedrella.

Ten minutes later, Cedrella was the owner of a Cedar and Unicorn Tail-hair wand, ten inches, quite springy. Father and mother seemed surprised, but also pleased.

"Cedar indicates strength of character, loyalty, and perception." Father said. "The unicorn hair will mean consistency in your casting, and a general lack of accidents. It will also not turn to the Dark Arts without serious effort."

Ahhh, that explained their surprise. Between the wood and the core, it meant that Cedrella was never going to be a Dark Arts practitioner, despite the familial predilection towards the Arts. Some small part of Cedrella was disappointed, but she had long since discovered in herself a reluctance at the thought of performing many Dark Arts spells. She had no real want to hurt others, not even the ignorant cattle of the Muggle world.

From there, they went to the trunk shop. Choosing a trunk was a surprisingly difficult affair. Cedrella immediately disdained the cheap, plain, barely adequate trunks foisted off on the uninformed by several harried clerks. Those trunks, which had neither interior expansion spells nor separate compartments to organize one's belongings, would not suffice for a full seven years of tuition. The trunk would be getting crowded as of third year, thanks to the additional wardrobe required for Hogsmeade weekends. By fifth, thanks to the additional studying required for OWLs and one's eligibility to attend the in-school Balls (necessitating yet more wardrobe additions) the situation would swiftly become untenable.

At minimum, a three-compartment trunk was required. One compartment for one's wardrobe, another for one's ever-increasing library of books, and the third for one's other school equipment. Unfortunately, that really didn't narrow down the options. Trunks came with every variety of options that Magic could manage. Some of them were quite clever and reasonable. Others were much less so. Eventually, Cedrella settled on a handsome green-and-silver trunk that had space enough for a reasonable wardrobe and a quite ridiculously large library, as she fully anticipated eventually bringing tomes from the Black Library with her to school as reference material in her later years.

Madam Malkin's was a madhouse, with no less than six families and their attendant clerks in the shop despite the early hour. Seeing the crush, Cedrella fully appreciated her father's wisdom in coming here early in the day. After a full day of dealing with that sort of crush, even the most patient person would be quite cross and uncivil.

Madam herself attended them. Cedrella fancied she saw something like relief in Madam's eyes at dealing with knowledgeable folks. It certainly took them no time at all to obtain the requisite robes. They immediately fled the store and headed out into the street.

"Where shall we head next?" Father asked, glancing at Cedrella and Callidora.

"The apothecary, Father." Callidora opined. "That way we have time to get the foul odor out of our noses before we stop for lunch."

"A sensible suggestion." Father agreed. "And then Flourish and Blotts, I believe, before the best of their stock gets picked over, followed by Scrivener's."

And so it went. About the time they finished at Scrivener's, it was time for lunch. Father took them to a small, discrete restaurant tucked in the relatively quiet zone between Gringotts and the main thoroughfare of shops that carried Hogwarts equipment. As a result, there were rather fewer lesser creatures about, providing a break from the crush.

Once they'd finished lunch, they made a few last stops – to pick up a telescope, phials, scales and protective gear for potions-making and Herbology. And then they were finally done, and could retreat to the Manor once more.

Cedrella breathed a sigh of relief when they were back at the Manor, then looked up at her father. "I almost thought you were exaggerating." She admitted. "But they truly are uncouth, unprincipled beasts, aren't they?"

"Yes. And quite happy to continue to wallow in ignorance." Father said. "Or worse, actively attempt to abrogate our traditions and laws because they see them as 'backwards'. They care nothing for the fact that things are the way they are for a reason."

Cedrella shook her head. "You would think they would attempt to learn *why* things are the way they are before they started throwing a fuss."

"One would assume that, yes. And one would be wrong." Father said. "Worse, if certain members of the Wizengamot had their way, the creatures would be humored, even if to do so would do more harm than good."

Cedrella was appalled. "That makes no sense!" She objected.

"Nevertheless, it is the way things are, currently." Father said.

Cedrella shook her head in dismay.

Three weeks later, it was time to board the train. Here again, Cedrella discovered some of what her father mentioned. She overheard more than one of the lesser breeds complaining about the long trip, and being forced to make their way to King's Cross, when they lived close to Hogwarts. The ignorance showed by such comments astounded her.

Yes, the trip on the train might seem odd from an outsider's perspective, she supposed. But the trip permitted everyone a chance to socialize before the school year officially began. This was especially important for the new First Years, as it provided the only chance they all had to come to know each other before House rivalries put stumbling blocks in their paths, and conflicting schedules made getting together all but impossible.

Even Cedrella, for all her disdain for the lesser creatures, forced herself to at least attempt making acquaintance with some of them. She was surprised (and delighted) to stumble across a few such creatures who were, while still ignorant, quite tolerable. They were even willing to listen to the wisdom of their betters, who understood the magical world, how and why it worked in a way no non-pureblood could, at least not this early in their magical tuition.

Despite that, when they disembarked from the train, Cedrella ensured she got a boat with only other purebloods. That was easy enough to manage, since there were currently five scions of the House of Black alone in Hogwarts, never mind the other Pureblood Houses.

Once in the school proper, Cedrella immediately neatened her appearance, since her robes had become somewhat disarranged in the boat. She took her place near the head of the line. They had been organized alphabetically by Professor Dumbledore, in order to speed up the Sorting slightly. It also allowed for more decorous behavior, since lining up alphabetically eliminated any need to push through the remaining group of unSorted children. Only the current Abbott scion preceded Cedrella.

When her name was called, she calmly took her place on the stool and permitted the Hat to be placed on her head. To her surprise, the Hat considered Ravenclaw for her at first. While it was not the preferred Sorting, it was certainly not a shameful one. While Blacks predominantly Sorted Slytherin, there had been a few Ravenclaws in the line over the years.

In the end, though, the Hat chose Slytherin. Cedrella's ambitions were … quieter … than some, she supposed. At least, she did not trumpet her goals to all and sundry, nor have grandiose, unachievable aims. But despite that, ambition she had in plenty, even if she didn't quite know what to do with it yet, other than becoming the very best at … whatever career she eventually settled on. All she knew was that she would not be content to merely be wife and mother. Oh, she wanted a husband and children when she got older, of course, but she wanted *more* than that for herself. She wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet, apart from her husband, and be recognized for her own contributions to society other than the children she bore and the parties she held.

She put all her will into her classes, determined to perform faultlessly. To, if at all possible, outshine the Ravenclaws, who normally took top honors scholastically. To her pleasure, she did exactly that in Transfiguration and Charms. Herbology, on the other hand, was an eternal trial. Cedrella did not approve of getting dirty, and could not see the logic in learning to tend plants. While she was sure such a thing had an applicability to future Potions Masters and Herbologists, she could not see where the rest of them would ever have any call to even remember most of what they learned in that class, never mind use the knowledge they obtained.

Astronomy was a delight, if only for the fact that her relatives carried the names of many of the constellations, and seeking them out in the heavens brought memories of home to mind. History of Magic was boring, but she had it on good authority it had been so for many years. Cedrella was just thankful she'd had six years of tuition in the subject at home, or she'd come away from that class as ignorant of the history of the magical world as the muggleborns did. Potions was both informative and amusing. Their Head of House, Professor Slughorn, managed to make what could otherwise be a tedious subject interesting, fun, and challenging.

She came away from her first year with all E's and O's, much to her pleasure, and managed to steal the top spot in her year in Charms. She'd gotten second in Transfiguration, behind one of the first year Ravenclaws. Her other classes, while she was not in the top five, she was in the top fifteen at least, top ten for all but Herbology.


	4. Noticing

Noticing

A/N: Rude French rant ahead – translation at the bottom.

Hogwarts, 1929

For Septimus, third year had largely been an echo of first and second, just with the addition of his elective classes. He'd decided to take Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Care of Magical Creatures. Septimus had begun to entertain the notion of becoming an Auror at least for a time after he graduated. His father enjoyed good health, so it was unlikely he would be required to step up as Head of the Family anytime soon. That meant he would be afforded the opportunity to have a career.

The feud that had started between Gryffindor and Slytherin in his second year had carried through to third. He had a feeling it wouldn't die down anytime soon. Tensions were always high between those two Houses to begin with. The situation that had occurred in second year had just given everyone an excuse to act on those tensions. He'd spent much of third year defending Firsties and Second Years again. And by year's end, he'd begun to notice something. Something that slipped his mind entirely during the summer. His fourth year, though, started with something of a bang, all thanks to Abraxas Malfoy.

The Malfoys were immigrants, interlopers. At least by the standards of the pureblood community. Oh, the Malfoys were purebloods, and thus at least tentatively welcomed by the purebloods at large, but they had emigrated to Britain roughly a century ago from France, which made them inherently inferior to the natives, according to the native purebloods. Worse, they had brought many of their French magical traditions and etiquette with them. Traditions and etiquette that frequently clashed horribly with British traditions.

The Malfoys had compounded the problem by attempting to compensate for their lesser position and apparent faults with arrogance, disdain, and basically throwing their money around like it was going out of style. It had resulted in them being labeled 'Novum Pecuniam' – new money. It was a rather dreadful insult that was normally leveled at the more gauche of the 'lesser' Pureblood Houses when they managed to attain some measure of prominence and as a result, lost their heads a bit. Occasionally the slur was applied to a particular Head of House, if they had a tendency towards profligate expenditure, especially if the money was spent on ill-advised purchases. Septimus wasn't quite sure what 'ill-advised purchases' were though.

The Malfoys had begun looking for ways to improve their reputation and standing. It was not unexpected that they would set their cap on marrying into an influential Family. They didn't get much more influential than House Black. Unfortunately, House Black just happened to have a bumper crop of girls that would need marrying off in the not-too-distant future. Four of those girls were currently at Hogwarts with Abraxas, who was now a third year.

Lucretia, Cassiopeia, and Callidora had reputations as formidable duelers, and none of them were shy about using Dark Arts. Only a true fool would attempt to strong-arm any of them. Cedrella, on the other hand, had been so quiet last year as to be almost unnoticeable. Septimus wouldn't even have realized she was in school if it hadn't been for the Sorting, and hearing her name be called. Because she'd been so quiet, she hadn't gotten the sort of reputation her sister and cousins had acquired yet. And Abraxas, the idiot, apparently decided that made her the easy mark of the lot.

Because of the bullying the previous year and at the end of the year before that, Septimus had taken to prowling the train. The prefects couldn't be everywhere at once, and the Slytherin prefects couldn't be trusted to actually intervene and stop a fight or bullying if they came across it. Besides, Septimus had friends enough from three Houses that they couldn't all fit in one compartment. Wandering around allowed him to visit with everyone.

That was how he ended up stumbling across Abraxas, Crabbe and Goyle. The three of them were parked in one of the compartments right by the door. Cedrella was sitting by the window, at least attempting to ignore them, since it was clear she couldn't attempt escape without getting in grabbing range. At least the three boys hadn't forgotten themselves enough to get grabby. Yet.

"Malfoy, you do realize that it is inappropriate for the three of you to be in here alone with Miss Black?" Septimus asked.

Fortunately, Cedrella and Abraxas were young enough that this situation wouldn't risk ruining her reputation, but it was cutting things fairly fine. In general, unwed girls were *not* supposed to be alone with boys. The older they got, the more inappropriate it became. Past about the age of fourteen, it would affect a girl's reputation to be caught alone with a boy or boys. Past sixteen, and she'd end up labeled 'loose' … or worse. The only exception was if the girl and the boy in question were betrothed to each other. At that point, with marriage a foregone conclusion, the pair being alone wasn't taboo.

"Mind your own business, Weasley." Abraxas snapped.

Septimus snorted. "Yeah, I don't think so." When Crabbe and Goyle moved as if to hex him, Septimus pulled his wand out of its wrist sheath and pointed it dead at Crabbe's face, as he was closest. "Don't even think about it." He barked, his voice going hard and commanding.

So of course Crabbe and Goyle both pulled their wands while Abraxas smirked at him. Fortunately, at that point Charlus Potter walked by. When he spotted the standoff, he immediately moved to bracket Septimus, wand pointing at the three Slytherin boys.

"Problem here?" Charlus asked.

"Yeah, but I got this part of it. Do me a favor, and find one of the Black girls, would you? These three … gentlemen … seem to have forgotten their manners, and the risk to Miss Black's reputation that their presence presents." Septimus said

"Not a problem." Charlus told him. He pocketed his wand once more and hurried off.

A few moments later, Callidora came storming up, an amused Charlus following in her wake. Septimus wisely got the heck out of her way, and joined Charlus in his amused observation as Callidora went on the warpath. She got nose-to-nose with an abruptly nervous-looking Abraxas, her wand drawn. Said wand was not pointing at his face, however. It was pointing a good deal further south, which probably accounted for much of Abraxas' concern

"I shall say this so even your ignorant, uncouth self can comprehend it." Callidora snapped. "Vous êtes un infâme, un ver gluant. Votre mère a eu des relations avec une chèvre et un cochon afin de vous produire. Vous êtes ignorant, arrogant, orgueilleux et une créature tout à fait désagréable. Si vous prétendez à entacher l'air que je respire ou ma sœur avec votre présence encore une fois, je ferai en sorte que vous passerez le reste de vos jours chauve, tacheté et couvert de rougeurs."

Septimus blinked. He recognized the language as French, and even understood a few words in there other than the ones that sounded like their English counterparts. Something about a goat and pig. Whatever it was, it *sounded* vicious and hateful. If Abraxas' expression was anything to go by, he did indeed speak French and understood every word Callidora had just said – and it was every bit as bad as it sounded.

"Come, Cedrella. There is no need to endure this … creature's … presence." Callidora said, holding a hand out to her sister.

With Septimus and Charlus right there, not even Abraxas was stupid enough to try to force Cedrella to stay. Septimus was mentally cringing at Callidora's final comment. 'Creature' was generally an epithet leveled at Muggleborns and Muggles by Blacks and their ilk. Which meant that Callidora had essentially put Malfoy at that level. Ouch.

Callidora turned to him at that point, and Septimus had to work to keep from flinching.

"I thank you for coming to my sister's defense, milord." She said, giving him a little curtsy.

Septimus gave her a smile. "Not a problem." He eyeballed the three boys. "I don't like bullies." And not even a *Black* deserved to get bullied.

It was only when they were safely in another compartment that Cedrella spoke up.

"Why on Earth did he do that?" She asked Callidora.

Callidora did not mistake who she was talking about. "He is a Gryffindor." She said with no small amount of disdain. "They are genetically predisposed to heroics." She sighed. "I shall be informing Father about that boy. He will take *Lord* Malfoy to task for his heir's presumption."

Unfortunately, Septimus reflected later, Callidora's rant hadn't had any effect on Abraxas. He continued to follow Cedrella about and harass her. Normally, Septimus wouldn't have noticed it, since they were both Slytherins, but the situation was causing a surprising amount of tension in Slytherin House. Enough to be noticeable even to the Ravenclaws, who were famously unaware of anything other than the contents of their beloved books.

On some level, it was amusing as hell, because Abraxas' persistence had earned him a few Infirmary stays thanks to several rather impressive hexes. On the other hand, it annoyed Septimus to no end … because the *adults* weren't doing a damned thing about the situation.

It brought to mind what he had begun to notice towards the end of last year. Which was that Slytherin House and their actions were largely ignored by the staff, both for good and ill. Septimus had noticed that in most classes he had with them, Gryffindors who answered a question or performed well were invariably awarded a generous number of points. Slytherins who did the same were not. Weirdly, in Potions, only certain Slytherins and a small handful of other students (not all of them purebloods, either) got points by the bucket-load, while everyone else was ignored. Bullying by Slytherins or aimed at them was at best passed off as slightly over-aggressive pranking – if it was acknowledged at all.

The more Septimus saw of it, the more it offended his sense of justice. The rules were the rules – they ought to be equally applied to *everybody*. If one person got a point for performing a spell first, *everybody* who performed a spell first in class ought to get a point, regardless of House. And breaking the rules was breaking the rules, and punished the same for everyone (he'd heard rumors about differences in detentions according to House). Unfortunately it was becoming clear that the school staff didn't see it that way.

Cedrella was somewhat disconcerted to realize that she had, apparently, acquired her own Gryffindor Knight in Shining Armor, as Callidora had put it with no small amount of amused asperity. Septimus Weasley seemed to crop up at the oddest times, and he had an absolute knack for showing up just when Abraxas Malfoy was at his importunate worst.

Not that she could not defend herself, of course, but she was of the opinion that granting Abraxas even the most minute amount of her attention would be perceived by him as a win. Thus she had embarked on a campaign to completely ignore him, no matter what he did. It helped that Callidora, Lucretia, and Cassiopeia were taking it in turns to hex Abraxas for every infraction. If he kept this up, he'd end up crippled for life before he made it to fifth year. Cedrella couldn't be bothered to feel sorry for him if it got that far, and refused to think about him at all if she could avoid it.

Septimus on the other hand, was far more worthy of contemplation if only in an attempt to figure him out. He was, as Callidora had pointed out, a Gryffindor so on one level it made his actions explicable. On the other hand, she was a Slytherin and a Black. The enmity between their Hogwarts Houses and their Families was the stuff of legends. Septimus, by her estimation, really ought to be gloating about an enemy laid low, not coming to her defense at every opportunity.

Up until this year, Cedrella hadn't really given much thought to her future spouse. She'd known it would happen, of course, but Abraxas' pursuit of her had brought it into sharper focus. She knew that the Prewitts were currently in negotiations for a betrothal contract between Lucretia and Ignatius, who was the future Head of that House – a match that befit the eldest granddaughter of the Head of House Black. And Father had begun to debate options for Callidora, though no one had yet approached him. It would be some time before he began to attempt to arrange something for herself.

That fact afforded her the opportunity to consider her options herself. Thankfully, as a daughter of a younger son, she would have the luxury of possibly choosing her own match, rather than having her future husband chosen for her like Lucretia. Ironically enough, Septimus Weasley would make a not altogether poor choice.

He would be, after all, Head of the Weasley family someday. While the Weasleys were poor, being wife to the Head of even a poor pureblood family was a step up from being the wife of a lesser son of another family. Septimus would bear watching. If he continued to be tolerable, she just might put his name forward to Father in a few years.

(_)(_)(_)(_)(_)

Translation from French (as per Google Translate): You are a loathsome, slimy worm. Your mother had relations with a goat and a pig in order to produce you. You are ignorant, arrogant, prideful and an altogether unpleasant creature. If you presume to taint the air I or my sister breathe with your presence again, I will ensure that you spend the rest of your days bald, spotty and covered in rashes.


	5. Birth of the Marauders

Birth of the Marauders

1930

Just after the turn of the year, there was a conference held at Potter Castle, between Septimus, Harfang Longbottom, and Charlus Potter. By that point, all three boys had noticed the distinct lack of action on the part of the school's teachers and other staff as regarded the Slytherins and their tendency to make life hell on everyone else in the castle.

They had also begun to do something about it, mostly individually though there had been several times when two or more of them had been present for an incident. By the end of the year, it had mostly been the three of them working together to deal with the situation at Hogwarts as best they could. It had worked well enough, but all three of them had agreed they needed some serious planning time.

"If the adults aren't going to do something about it, we should." Charlus insisted.

"I don't disagree." Septimus said. "But I think that's what good for the goose is good for the gander. If we start targeting Slytherin bullies somehow, we need to target *all* bullies."

"A valid point, Septimus." Harfang agreed. "I can think of a few folks in all four Houses that need their attitudes readjusted."

Charlus nodded. "I can agree to that. We just need to figure out how to teach them a lesson without getting into trouble ourselves. In that arena, I think we need to take inspiration from, and I honestly can't believe I'm saying this, but Family Black. The girls have been utterly vicious to Abraxas, everyone knows they are behind his streak of misfortune and accidents. Despite that, I don't think they've gotten caught even once."

Harfang nodded. "True. The one thing that bothers me about that is the fact it's possible it's part of the whole 'ignore Slytherin' mentality, but somehow I don't think so."

"No, it isn't." Septimus said. "Lucretia, Cassiopeia, and Callidora are very, very good, I won't deny that. Unfortunately, they're being helped by the fact that anything that can be labeled as pranks *is*. I hate to say it, but I have a feeling that so long as we don't start using Dark Arts or outright curses, we can pretty much get away with whatever we want."

"And humiliating the perpetrators will be so much more fun than beating the shite out of them." Harfang pointed out. "Bruises fade, and you can make out like you got them honorably. The gossip generated by humiliating incidents can follow you for life."

That got amused grins from all three boys for the truth of that statement.

"So we're agreed: prank the living hell out of bullies, and anyone we catch breaking important rules, like not pushing themselves on a witch." Septimus said, holding out a hand to the other two boys.

Harfang and Charlus gripped his and each other's hands, creating a tangle of fingers and palms. "Agreed." They chorused.

"So, let the planning commence. We're going to need to do this carefully, so that it remains anonymous as to who the perpetrators are." Harfang said.

"We're also going to have to find a way to make it clear to everyone that the pranks are a direct response to bullying or rule-breaking." Charlus pointed out.

"Right." Septimus grabbed quill and parchment. "Let's get down to business, gentlemen. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

The plan proved simple enough, for all it took a good deal of talking to work out the details. With all three boys sharing a room in Gryffindor, they didn't have to make allowances for different living spaces when it came to planning pranks at school. That said, they would have to deal with their other roommates, as there were eight Gryffindor boys in their year. They also had differing schedules to deal with, as Harfang and Charlus were both taking Muggle Studies, having become intrigued by Muggles in their visits to Septimus' home. Harfang was not taking Arithmancy, and Charlus was not taking Care of Magical Creatures.

They decided to convene their little revenge club in an abandoned classroom fairly close to Gryffindor Tower, which would reduce the chances of them being caught out after curfew. They also decided to keep their pranks as anonymous as possible. Septimus having friends in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw helped them with that, as he would be able to find out what the passwords were if he was discreet about it.

That would allow them to hit people while they were in the 'safety' of their Houses. This deprived their targets of a potential safe area, and muddled the issue of who could be targeting them, since they would be unable to eliminate their Housemates. Of course, none of them had friends in Slytherin, but Septimus was of the opinion that if they approached the Black girls, they would be amenable to assisting with either giving them the password to the Slytherin Dorms or placing prepared pranks for the boys. Charlus promised to talk to his father, something about obtaining a family heirloom that would make their quest infinitely easier.

"If I present it right, he'll be so pleased at me standing up to nasty sorts he'll be only too pleased to hand it over." Charlus told them with a grin. "But until I have it in hand, I'll not tell you what it is. I don't want us to count on having it until then."

After some debate, they eventually decided on a way to code their discussions about pranks and targets. Here, Septimus' extensive collection of living relatives came in handy. Any talk of birthdays, weddings, or the like with the name Weasley attached would garner little to no attention, because there were so many of them, and the odds of there being such an event in truth was quite high. Better, between the three of them, they had names of relatives (both living and dead) that started with every letter in the alphabet. This would allow them to substitute a name starting with the correct letter for the real name of their intended target. In this way, figuring out what gift to send for 'Cousin Alphonse's birthday' would be code for planning for the next prank on Abraxas. They would also choose a different relative (and event) for each prank, so as to keep people from taking notice that they'd been debating about the same thing for an entire year.

They also agreed to put serious effort into learning defensive hexes. They were quite sure that eventually they would either stumble across someone doing something heinous that needed to be addressed *right then*, or someone would put two and two together and come up with four as to the source of their humiliating event, necessitating that the three boys defend themselves from retaliatory violence. In conjunction with that, they solemnly promised to back each other up if and when they came under attack themselves.

The next item on the list was to decide what was prankable, and what was not. Bullying obviously was on the list, but they had to agree among themselves as to what constituted bullying. Once they had agreed on that, they debated what else was punishable by prank. Eventually, they decided that physical violence would result in a prank. Physical violence against a girl would result in a doubled prank. And though they prayed they would never encounter such a thing, any boy caught forcing himself on a girl would skip the prank meter entirely and get himself hexed impotent for life instantly. Beyond physical attacks, any hexes outside the normal range of prank spells would get the perpetrator (provided they could be identified) in trouble, unless the hex was performed against a known repeat offender on their list, since at that point it would become likely that the hex was in response to an incident.

They then decided that there would be an escalation in pranks. The first prank played on any one person would be mild – by way of being a gentle warning. Each successive prank played on the same person would get more and more embarrassing. Extra points in embarrassment would be awarded for multiple offenses in the same category. For instance, if someone bullied others repeatedly the pranks would get worse by orders of magnitude with each offense, jumping from the level of short-term hair dye to something like a spell forcing them to do or wear something very humiliating in the Great Hall during mealtime in very short order.

The last thing they agreed on was that they themselves could not ever stand accused of the wrongdoings they punished others for. Pranks could be humiliating, but could not cross the line into inappropriate – no making someone go naked, or some such nonsense. Such a thing would be qualified as crossing the line between 'teaching a lesson/making someone accountable and bullying. And on pain of becoming a target themselves, they would never bully outside of pranks, either. Nor would they break the rules they had decided they would punish others for breaking.

It would be better than a decade before any of the three of them realized that they had laid the groundwork for a mutual Alliance Oath between their families, between their agreement to work together for a cause and act in each others' defense.

By the time they returned to school after the Yule break, they'd gotten everything ironed out. Charlus had gotten his father to agree to let him have that family heirloom, which turned out to be an invisibility cloak. Septimus had been surprised, as such cloaks didn't last long enough to end up considered 'heirlooms'. According to Charlus, the thing had been in the family for hundreds of years, and aside from being an heirloom was something of a mystery and curiosity. Having it would simplify matters for them a great deal, as it would reduce the chances of getting caught to next to nothing.

It didn't take Abraxas long to be caught being pushy with Cedrella Black yet again. Actually, he didn't even make it through their first day back at school. The three boys had talked over what to do to Abraxas the first time he stepped out of line after they returned, so they immediately swung into action.

Their first prank on Abraxas was a finite-proof color charm that caused his hair to change colors every five minutes for an hour or so until it wore off naturally or someone realized it was finite-proof and used one of the more powerful spell cut-offs. Hexing him in the bustling confusion of the returned students without being caught proved ridiculously simple. It was less painful than the hexes the Black girls had been hitting him with, but more embarrassing,

By the end of January, the *entire* school was beginning to take notice of the fact that Abraxas and known bullies were being pranked. It didn't take the student body long to figure out that the pranks were a response to the bullying. With members of every House being targeted, no one could really finger any likely suspect, though the most popular option was the fifth-year and above Gryffindors, followed by the same-year Hufflepuffs. Both houses were notorious for having issues with people that hurt others, if for different reasons. The boys didn't know whether to be pleased or outraged that while the students had figured out the cause and effect, the teachers were still oblivious. Oh, they'd noticed an upswing in pranks, certainly, but they hadn't realized there was a pattern to the victims of a number of the pranks.

One of the first things that Septimus had done when they returned to school in January was to approach the Black girls. Since he and Charlus had acted in defense of Cedrella on the train, it was felt that they had the best chance of approaching the girls and winning their support. Septimus had deliberately approached Lucretia. She was the highest-ranked of the Black girls currently at Hogwarts, given she was the granddaughter of the current Head of Family Black, whereas the other three were all from the younger Black siblings. This made Lucretia the de facto leader and voice of the Black girls.

Lucretia had been understandably suspicious about being approached by two Gryffindors, even if they had come to her cousin's defense. The fact they *had* earned them a hearing, instead of her ignoring them or hexing them to get them to go away. Septimus was fairly sure they had come within a hairsbreadth of getting hexed anyway when they told her what they were up to, and wanted from her and her cousins. It took some rather fast talking and soothing of ruffled feathers to calm things back down. Eventually, once Lucretia had calmed down and thought the matter over, she agreed to provide them with the password to the Slytherin dorms when they needed it in exchange for a future favor of her choice within certain limits – Septimus hadn't been about to agree to a blanket 'anything I want' option.

The Black girls' assistance meant that Abraxas wasn't safe anywhere. Better, he was getting pranked at times, and in places, that the Black girls had iron-clad alibis for. That took some of the heat off of them, as Abraxas had been getting angrier and angrier with the girls over their attacks, with the distinct possibility of him eventually doing something truly stupid if he lost his temper. With attacks coming from another source, much of Abraxas' attention was diverted. He was far too busy trying to figure out who the new perpetrator(s) were and protecting himself (futilely) to waste much time and energy on the girls.

Sometime in February, someone started calling the unknown pranksters (it was commonly agreed that there had to be more than one) the Marauders. By the end of the school year, 'the Marauders' were well on their way to becoming legends. The boys had agreed they liked the name, and had taken to referring to their little group by the name when they were in private and could talk openly.

Despite, or perhaps because of their extracurricular activities, all three boys managed exceedingly high grades, with none of them getting less than an E on any subject, and all three of them having more O's than E's to their names. On the train home at the end of the year, they made plans to meet over the summer and discuss more and bigger pranks for the upcoming year, and to research more defensive spells they could use when that eventually came up.


	6. Cedrella's Third Year

Cedrella's Third Year

1930

Cedrella's third year at Hogwarts proved to be exceedingly interesting on a number of levels. Scholastically, she found herself happily challenged. She had chosen Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and to her family's shock and no little amount of horror, Muggle Studies as her electives.

When Father discovered that she intended to take Muggle Studies, she had immediately been called into his study, and taken to task.

"I do not know why you waste your time and talents on such a useless subject." Father said. "But I shall be writing the Headmaster and informing him you will not be attending that so-called class."

"I will attend it, Father, whether you will or no." Cedrella said firmly.

Internally, she was shaking in fear at defying her father's commands for the first time in her life, but she wasn't going to back down from this. At least, not unless he forced the issue by going to their Head of House. Not for the first time did Cedrella find herself grateful that her father wasn't that august personage - it made it so much easier to do as she wanted, rather than what her father wanted her to do.

"I agree with you that Muggles are foul creatures. I am not taking the class because I *like* them." She insisted. "I am taking the class because it is prudent to know the enemy – and one's prey."

While she had absolutely no intention of ever going Muggle-hunting, she knew that intimating she might actually do so would help to placate her father. It also helped that two truisms - 'know thine enemy' and 'knowledge is power' were as well known in the Wizarding world as they were in the Muggle.

"When one is in pursuit of a dragon, or a werewolf, or any other magical creature one desires to hunt." Cedrella said. "Or has enmity with, one is *wise* to learn all one can of the creature's habits, habitats, strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, one is less likely to come to harm in the pursuit of the creature. This is no different. In that class, I will learn a great deal about Muggles, and thus be better equipped to … deal with one. For instance, I am given to understand from conversations I have overheard that Muggles have a variety of weapons. While I am sure such crude constructs can do little to no harm to the prepared witch or wizard – I can only be prepared if I know what those weapons are, what they do, and what they look like."

Father contemplated her for several long moments before he relaxed minutely. "There is wisdom in your argument, Cedrella." He finally admitted. "Very well. You have my leave to pursue this."

"Thank you, father." Cedrella said, and then got while the getting was good.

In truth, Cedrella was taking the class because between her yearly encounters with Muggles in Diagon Alley and conversations she had indeed overheard, her curiosity had been piqued. She was still quite sure that Muggles were uncouth, violent creatures, but the claims of several of her classmates needed to be verified at the very least, and Muggle Studies was the best place to do so, short of venturing into the Muggle world. That, she was not prepared or willing to do.

The first thing she discovered in the class was that what was taught did not quite tally with what she was hearing from the Muggleborns in the castle. For instance, in the Muggle Studies class, 'horseless carriages' were presented as a brand new Muggle invention, and claimed to be very rare. From what she was hearing from the Muggleborns, however, that wasn't quite true. The things were fairly new, yes, but they'd apparently been around a few decades. They were also rapidly becoming anything but rare. And that was but one point where things differed, though apparently they didn't differ by too terribly much.

Cedrella was forced to decide that whoever wrote the books for the class only visited the Muggle world occasionally, rather than living there. She was also forced to decide that whatever else Muggles might be, they were clever creatures, capable of inventing the oddest things in rapid succession.

Most of the things Muggles invented proved to be work-arounds for things that a witch or wizard could do with a wave of a wand. Those carriages, for instance, were the Muggles' answer to traveling long distances. Where witches and wizards had brooms, floos, portkeys and apparation (among other choices), Muggles had their horseless carriages. They also had some rather odd flying … things, apparently, as well as boats. While the work-arounds were bulky, crude, and inelegant, they nevertheless worked.

Arithmancy fascinated her. Arithmancy was the backbone upon which new spells were formulated. Its sometimes exceedingly complicated mathematical formulae provided the answers to how much power a new spell might require and the optimal wand movements to accomplish the required task. Balancing the two frequently proved to be entertaining, as the power level changed with the wand movements. It was possible to lower the power requirements by changing the wand movements, but this also frequently changed the spell's effects slightly, or decreased the length of time the spell worked. Too far in one direction, and it wasn't the spell you were wanting to create. Too far in the other, and only a handful of people might be able to cast the spell.

Ancient Runes was slightly less interesting, but no less important. Runes formed the backbone of all semi-permanent (lasting one to five years) and permanent wards, transfigurations, charms, or conjuring, among other applications. Runes could be used by anyone with so much as a spark of magic. Some squibs could even use them - those that had enough magic to perceive magical creatures but not enough to perform any actual spells.

Third year was proving to be interesting outside of academics as well. By the end of second year, Abraxas had seemed to at least partially learn his lesson when it came to hounding her, and had become more circumspect. He still pursued her, but he had learned not to cross the line in the sand that her cousins and the Gryffindor boys had drawn. That improvement in behavior continued into her third year. The relief from his attentions was welcome, even if having a triad of Gryffindors defending her honor would never cease to be odd.

She was amused to note just before Yule break her third year that Harfang Longbottom and Callidora had begun to spend an unprecedented amount of time together, given their Houses and Families. It was creating *quite* the stir in the school. While cross-House romances were pretty much expected after graduation, even between Gryffindors and Slytherins, such things happening *in* Hogwarts was cause for massive amounts of gossip and no little amount of shock, horror, and dismay from a variety of parties. Callidora and Harfang seemed to be rather enjoying the notoriety, and took a perverse pleasure in flaunting their relationship in the presence of the most vocal objectors.

The thing of further interest – and a great deal of intense amusement – was the so-called Marauders. Knowing who they were actually increased the amusement, mostly thanks to the entire student body trying to figure it out. Even Septimus, Harfang, and Charlus got in on the 'who are they' shenanigans.

And that was the source of the rest of her amusement as regarded that group. Because for a triad of Gryffindors, they were being very Slytherin indeed about how they went about making examples of their targets. There was no crowing, no indiscreet discussion of targets in places they could be overheard, and they even had the wit to join in on guessing who the Marauders were, rather than keeping silent and thus bringing suspicion onto themselves. The pranks themselves were well thought out and executed, and in many cases specifically tailored to a known weakness of the target, for maximum effect.

Cedrella continued to keep a casual eye on Septimus. It didn't hurt that she was of an age now to really notice that Septimus was … rather good looking, really, with the promise of becoming more so as an adult. Having something pretty to watch made keeping an eye on him that much more pleasant. The more she watched him, the more she became impressed with him. He was the quintessential Gryffindor – courageous, chivalrous, and determined. He also seemed to be largely without that House's worst vices – arrogance, pride, and leaping into situations without any forethought whatever. Oh, he wasn't perfect - Cedrella wasn't putting him on that sort of pedestal - but his faults were far outweighed by his good points.

He was surprisingly careful and methodical for a Gryffindor, and very protective of everyone younger than him. For that, Cedrella was grateful, because without his assistance and that of the Marauders, she would likely have faced an increasingly uncomfortable tenure at Hogwarts thanks to Abraxas and his persistence in pursuing her. He was intelligent, hard-working, charming and personable without being over-the-top about it. Yes, if he continued thus, he would make a not-bad choice for husband. Not bad at all. He could use a lot more cunning and ambition, but that could be developed with the right handling later.

School was otherwise quiet the rest of the year. To her surprise, her father pulled her into his study the day after she returned home for the summer.

"I find myself curious as to what you learned in Muggle Studies." He confessed. "I never took the class myself, as the creatures were of no interest to me, nor have I encountered them outside of the yearly Diagon Alley trips."

Cedrella laughed. "You were in no way wrong about them being violent and uncouth, father." She said. "One of the first things we learned is that they have a surprising and distressing number of ways to kill each other despite not having magic, and they employ these methods frequently, and for little to no cause, both en-masse and on an individual level." She gave her head a shake. "And they seem to take pleasure in being quite rude to one another as well. Truly, I cannot comprehend how there are so many of them, the way they go about things. As violent as they seem to be you'd think they'd have wiped themselves out long ago."

Father made a wordless sound of amusement and waved a hand, encouraging her to continue.

"Despite that, they are surprisingly clever beasts." Cedrella admitted. "They seem to constantly be inventing things, creating ways to muddle along without magic, and improving on those methods. Granted, the methods are crude and bulky and generally far slower than magic, but they do still work." She gave her head a shake. "There also seems to be a discrepancy between what we learn and what is real. I think because whoever writes the book does not live in the Muggle world, only visits it occasionally."

"Definitely a strong possibility." Father agreed. "And how was the rest of your year, then?"

"Quite tolerable." Cedrella said. "The Malfoy heir seems to have come to understand his attentions are neither appropriate nor welcomed finally. He still makes it plain he would have my hand the moment I am of age, but he no longer attempts to waylay me to express this." She smirked. "Callidora and the cousins have been … quite thorough in expressing their displeasure at his presumption, and assistance in this matter has come from a rather unusual source."

"So the rumors would have it." Father agreed. "Something about a band of miscreants starting trouble?"

"Pranksters targeting bullies." Cedrella corrected, knowing full well that father would by now know nearly as much about what was going on as she did. "Callidora certainly seems to approve of it."

Father cocked an eyebrow at her. "It would be a felicitous match for her, if things continue to develop that direction."

"I don't disagree, father. Harfang is a personable, principled boy. I just find it amusing." Cedrella said.

"You will find yourself similarly distracted in time." Father pointed out. "It is the way of such things."

Cedrella wasn't so sure about that, but knew better than to disagree with Father. She well remembered that a few years ago, Callidora had been thoroughly uninterested in the male of the species. So it stood to reason that she would become more interested as time passed, and to claim otherwise would only see her made a fool of later on.

"At any rate, your mother has expressed an interest in traveling to Germany this year. As we have no other plans, I have agreed to indulge her wanderlust. You should make plans accordingly."

"Yes father." Cedrella said.

The news was quite pleasant. Family trips had been nonexistent until after Charis, her younger sister, had begun attending the Children's Ball. That next summer, they'd gone to France for part of the summer. They hadn't traveled since, so going abroad for a week or so sounded fun and exciting. For all the people they met were invariably strange, it was nevertheless fascinating to meet witches and wizards from outside of Britain and discover differences in how they performed and viewed magic.


	7. The Ending of an Era

The Ending of an Era

1933

For Septimus, the last three years of his time at Hogwarts positively flew by.

He hadn't much envied Professor Dumbledore the choosing of the Prefect for his year. Of the eight boys, there were really only two who were unsuitable for the job. They were only unsuitable because they were on the Quidditch team, and trying to juggle Quidditch, Prefect duties, and studying with OWL's coming was just … very unwise. At least in Septimus' mind. Choosing one Prefect from the remaining six boys couldn't have been an easy task.

As it was, Dumbledore's choice meant that he effectively had three Prefects for Septimus' year. Dumbledore had chosen Charlus as Prefect. While Charlus was, indeed, a good choice, all three boys were fairly sure the selection had little to do with Charlus' suitability and a great deal to do with Charlus' surname.

The Potters were quite influential, second only to the Black family really, and at that only because the Black family had more members. The Potters had been producing single children only for a number of generations, which had drastically cut their numbers. It was pretty clear to the boys that Dumbledore had assigned Charlus with the hope of currying some small amount of favor. Slughorn had been currying favor too, considering that Lucretia Black was the female prefect for her year in Slytherin and Pollux Black, who was three years ahead of them, had been a prefect his fifth and sixth years and Head Boy the year before.

Charlus being a prefect had made their campaign against the nasty elements in the school infinitely easier. Charlus had a damn lot of fun nailing every idiot of that sort that crossed his path with the maximum punishment a prefect could levy, every single time. He had also turned a blind eye to Septimus and Harfang's nighttime excursions, and had actually helped most of the time, even if he could only make sure the other prefect doing rounds that night patrolled away from where Septimus and Harfang were at.

Charlus' advancement to prefect was also the beginning of the end of any respect Septimus had for Dumbledore. About a month and a half into fifth year, Charlus was called into Dumbledore's office and taken to task for levying such 'harsh' punishments against blatant rule-breakers. Dumbledore had been of the opinion that such should be dealt with gently, that those in the 'Light' should not lower themselves to the same sort of punitive level the 'Dark' contingent used, and that the Dark-aligned students needed to be given the chance to see the error of their ways and repent. Dumbledore had even gone so far as to threaten (if vaguely) to rescind Charlus' status as prefect if he didn't toe Dumbledore's line.

Charlus had given lip-service agreement to Dumbledore then gotten out of the meeting. He'd then called a meeting of the boys in their year and told them about the meeting. While their roommates remained unaware that Septimus, Charlus, and Harfang were the Marauders, they supported the Marauders' cause, and were willing to refuse the badge if Charlus was removed as prefect.

The only reason the Marauders hadn't pranked Dumbledore within an inch of his life on the spot was that they were worried he'd make the connection between his scolding of Charlus and the pranks. They had mutually voted to delay their retribution for a while, to give Dumbledore a chance to either forget about it, or assume that they had. That said, they made extensive plans for either late in the year or Sixth Year, depending on how things worked out as OWLs got closer.

They ended up opting for sixth year. By the time Easter Break came around and it seemed safe enough to contemplate enacting the pranks, all three of them were up to their eyeballs in things to do, between patrolling, planning and carrying out pranks against the usual targets, and studying for their OWLs.

Dumbledore really got on their bad side just before Easter, too. He finally attempted to remove Charlus as prefect since Charlus had refused to stop punishing the worst offenders so harshly, and Dumbledore's attempts to give back the points lost at least was for naught, because Charlus just took them right back off again as soon as he found out that points had been awarded or his subtraction of points had been nullified. Dumbledore's expression when every last Gryffindor fifth year refused the badge in Charlus' stead had been entertaining. Septimus, who had been approached last as his friendship with Charlus was well known, had been particularly entertained by Dumbledore's frustration.

"Quite frankly, sir, leave the badge with Charlus and be glad of it." Septimus had told Dumbledore, rather bluntly. "Because if I take that badge, they're going to get worse than they already have. A lot worse. Charlus at least doesn't have the Weasley temper to make things more difficult for that lot." He'd pointed out. True, Septimus was more phlegmatic than many in his family, but that didn't mean he didn't get angry and hex first without asking questions. "And I don't understand why you're trying to protect that lot of ... undesirables ... either. I've watched that lot make everyone miserable the entire time I've been in this school. By my count, sir, their second and third and tenth chances are long since past. They're not going to suddenly see the light and change their ways if we play nicely with them. The only thing they respect and respond to is force."

Dumbledore had been rather horrified by that pronouncement, and had let him go. Charlus had retained his prefect status, but they all knew he'd never make Head Boy because of the stand he'd taken. Not that Charlus especially cared about that.

Septimus was pleased, come summer, to discover he had gotten O's in everything save History of Magic. After some thought, mostly to ensure he was still interested in the possible career he'd chosen for himself until he became Head of House (he did hope that didn't happen until he was ninety or so), he signed up for NEWT level classes in everything save History of Magic. It was going to be a rather heavy load of classes for NEWTs, but he knew he could do it.

Charlus and Harfang had similar grades in their classes, and opted to continue on with most of their classes. In their cases, besides dropping History like a bad habit, they had both dropped Muggle Studies. They'd learned enough in the previous three years to feel more comfortable in the Muggle world, and figured they would do better learning the rest as they went, rather than in a classroom. Part of that attitude was engendered because they had noticed that Muggle Studies lagged behind Muggles' achievements rather noticeably. The other half of the reason was the slant put on the lessons by the teacher. They were fairly sure the teacher didn't like Muggles at all, and it came through in what and how the teacher taught them.

The Marauders struck before the next school year had officially started. Somehow, between the arrival of the upper years via carriage and Dumbledore being required to meet the first years, he'd gotten hit by a prank that turned his hair – all of it – a blinding neon green. His hair was also puffed out around his head in a way that, several decades later and a continent away, would end up being called an 'afro'. All his hair. Including the beard. The results were both eye-searing and hysterically funny. And if Dumbledore's attempts were anything to go by, not easily gotten rid of. In the end, to everyone's startlement, he simply cut most of his beard off in order to be able to see and eat. He showed up to the first class of the year with his head-hair shorn close to his scalp.

The prank was cause for a lot of comment from everyone third year and up. Those were the kids who had been around long enough to have figured out the pattern to the Marauders' attacks. The question of what on Earth a professor could possibly have done to merit being targeted was on everyone's minds. Especially since it took Dumbledore nearly a week to get the color to go away. Doubly especially when that wasn't the last prank he was subjected to. By the end of the year, the Marauders had played a grand total of a dozen pranks on the man, and everyone was wondering why.

Sixth year brought with it the advent of learning to cast spells silently. Septimus was surprised to find that it came to him relatively easily. DADA had been his best, favorite class since second year, but he'd sort of expected that, given he had a Blackthorn and Dragon Heartstring wand. That combination all but guaranteed he'd end up in combat at some point. The ease he had with silent casting had come as something of a surprise at first. Once he'd thought about it, though, it made sense. Being effective in combat meant being darn good at casting spells silently so that your opponent had no idea what you were about to cast.

Everyone else seemed to struggle with learning silent casting. It took nearly a month for anyone to cast silent spells with any kind of reliability, never mind any sort of speed whatever. Even then, learning to cast a single silent spell for the first time usually meant a minimum of five minutes of effort for everyone else until almost the end of sixth year. Septimus generally accomplished it within two minutes starting in late November. He managed to do it faster and earlier than that in DADA.

On top of the speed with which he was able to learn to cast spells silently, he was able to perform the spells with only a minimum of effort. Most of the others strained and fought and concentrated fiercely to cast silently all year. Septimus, once he'd learned to cast the spell the first time, barely had to try to be able to cast it after that. Again, by late November, he was able to cast spells he had already learned one-after-the-other far, far faster and more easily than anyone else he was aware of.

To his surprised pleasure, the DADA instructor took him aside just before the Yule break and offered him additional tuition, commenting that Septimus had an unusual affinity for the subject.

"I know what classes you're taking, lad." The man said. "And if you're planning the career I think you are, you're going to make for one hell of an Auror in very short order."

Septimus admitted he was right about Septimus' future plans, and spent an hour every weekend learning a variety of spells that weren't on the syllabus, more for lack of time than any other reason.

"There's more spells out there than a man can learn in a lifetime, lad, never mind in seven years of school." The Defense teacher pointed out. "The more spells you learn, the more formidable you'll be. People expect a certain range of spells to be aimed at them in a fight, depending on who their opponent is. In your case, they're going to be expecting purely Light Hogwarts-taught spells and Auror-taught spells. Go outside that range, and you'll catch your opponent out every single time."

Before Septimus had quite known it, he was graduating, with all O's. Better still, the Ministry headhunters had sought him out, offering him a spot in the Auror academy. Better even than that, despite not doing quite as well (both had at least one E, rather than all O's), both Harfang and Charlus had also been recruited. They arrived at the Ministry together, and were confronted by the head trainer almost immediately.

"Ministry keeps an eye on what comes out of Hogwarts." The man said. "DMLE picks up quite a few, of course, but we have a hell of a time teaching them to work in groups. You lot." He waved at them. "You already work together. That's going to give you a huge advantage in the field, once you're trained up. You're not going to have to learn to trust your partner."

What none of them found out for several months was that while partnering Aurors was standard procedure, it was usually *partners*. As in, two people. Not three. But the DMLE had seen how tight the three of them were, and in a rare show of intelligence, had opted not to break them up.

Auror training made a mockery of their school days. They were drilled incessantly on spell casting, tactics, laws and penal code, arrest procedure, recognition and breaking of a variety of wards, recognition of potions and their effects, recognition of and emergency treatment for potions or spell damage, and spell recognition based on color flashes and/or wand movements among other things.

The training forged the triad into a nearly unbeatable force. Septimus was the heavy hitter of the three – not necessarily more powerful than they, but he was the one with the broader knowledge of spells and greater ease in silent casting. Harfang quickly became their expert on wards, potions, shields, and healing. Charlus was their tactician and research expert, when research was required.

Of course, that didn't truly become settled for another two years, but as it was merely expanding upon a division of duties that had come about in the Marauders, it wasn't entirely unexpected by the three of them, nor difficult to set in place.

Around Christmastime 1933, the general atmosphere in Europe changed. Some Muggle fellow named Hitler came to power in Germany and … well, started making waves there. Worse, Grindelwald, long a dark stain on Europe's magical presence, started making a bit more noise than usual.

The DMLE kept abreast of such things, just in case. Unfortunately, the attitude of the rest of the Ministry was that it was happening in Europe, not here, and therefore of no concern whatsoever. Especially that muggle.

None of them knew it then, but later, much, much later, Septimus and Cedrella both would point to the events of that year as the beginning of the dark time to come. A long period of fear, war, death and betrayal. Of brother fighting brother and old men who had long lost any empathy for their fellow man attempting to control the fate of them all.

Whenever the subject came up, later in his life, Septimus was quick to say that it had also marked the beginning of an unprecedented era – one of unexpected, felicitous alliances in the battle to fight the encroaching darkness. One of bright, rising stars in the Light. Of people willing to make a stand against lawlessness and depravity and Darkness.


	8. Making Plans

Making Plans

1935

The Dumbledore Pranks had, Cedrella later decided, unexpected and unfortunate consequences. She had no idea why the Marauders had pranked the man, though she was quite sure Dumbledore had deserved it. Whatever else could be said about the Marauders, they only targeted people who stepped over moral or legal lines.

Previous to those pranks, Dumbledore had been content to wear the usual, fairly sober robes common to the average witch or wizard. Afterwards, in the wake of being forced to shear off most of his hair, both beard and head-hair, his taste in colors changed fairly radically. He took to wearing bright, clashing colors. It was both traumatizing and amusing.

Other than that, fourth year proved to be a quiet one – and Cedrella's last quiet year. While she had begun to develop a more womanly figure prior to that point, the Hogwarts robes concealed it quite nicely. They had rendered her as androgynous as most everyone else under the age of fifteen save for the biggest of the boys and the most curvaceous of the girls. That state of affairs ended over the summer. Actually, it had begun to end in the last months of her fourth year, but it had only just become noticeable by the time they were on the train home.

Actually, from roughly April until November that year was actually a fairly uncomfortable time for Cedrella. It seemed like all her body's systems decided to go into overdrive at roughly the same time. She hit one last (extensive) growth spurt, and the final stages of puberty hit. Worse, aside from the physical discomfort that accompanied those changes, Cedrella had to adjust to the change in boys' attitudes about her. Until then, there'd been Abraxas and his much-unwanted interest, and a few other boys that seemed to take notice of her towards the end of fourth year, but she had otherwise not had to deal with importunate suitors. From the start of Fifth Year onwards, she found herself getting chased by a number of boys with amorous intentions.

From the vast majority of them, the attentions were entirely unwelcome. Worse, they did not seem inclined to take 'no' for an answer. Cedrella started taking a page out of Callidora and Lucretia's books and became a master at the subtle, cutting put-down in remarkably short order. She took especial delight in hitting boys where it hurt the most, but in such a way that it took days – sometimes weeks, for the especially dim – to realize they'd been badly insulted. She absolutely refused to permit any of them to court her. The rare few that attempted to go over her head by appealing to her father, or in Abraxas' case Lord Black, got shot down in flames by those authorities.

Of course, that decision had as much to do with her growing attraction to Septimus as it did her distaste at the fumbling attempts of the other boys. The fact that Septimus paid her absolutely no mind as an eligible single female won him a huge number of points in her books. He treated her like he treated everyone else that wasn't considered an enemy. He was always polite, usually charming, and frequently protective. Oddly enough, Septimus' chivalrous and protective streak didn't annoy the hell out of Cedrella – probably because he applied it equally to everyone he considered to be more vulnerable than himself, and didn't try to make her a special case because she was a girl. She'd seen him get between boys and their attackers repeatedly in the past, as well as defending girls.

Certainly, that protective streak was almost openly welcomed when Abraxas, noticing that Cedrella had 'become a woman', returned to the obnoxious, presumptuous attempts at pursuing her that he had indulged in during her first few years at Hogwarts. The resultant smackdowns delivered by the Marauders amused Cedrella greatly.

Importunate would-be suitors aside, Cedrella's remaining years at Hogwarts were generally quiet. She attained quite high grades, and eventually returned home.

Once there, she went straight to her father. She knew that he had begun negotiating with the Longbottoms for a betrothal between Callidora and Harfang – that duo had stood the test of time at Hogwarts, despite the general outrage of the students at a Gryffindor and a Slytherin courting. It would not be too long before her father started to consider a possible match for her.

She had not changed her mind about Septimus in the least, but she had a plan in mind. Septimus, she knew, was going to be Head of House someday. If he was to have any chance at all at turning the Weasley Family back into a Family the Wizengamot listened to, he was going to need expert assistance.

Unfortunately, as a daughter of the youngest son of the House, Cedrella had not been drilled extensively in political matters. She'd had basic tuition in that field, but nothing like what the future Head of House got, and that was the training she needed in order to be of most use to Septimus. She fully intended to correct this lack before any attempt at a union between the Weasleys and the Blacks was attempted.

She knocked on the door to her father's study, and then slipped through the door when he called for her to enter.

"Good evening, father." She said.

"Cedrella. It is good to have you home again, my girl. What did you wish to speak to me about?" Father asked, knowing full well she would not have disturbed him for no reason.

"I wished to speak to you about the future, father." Cedrella said. "I know there will come a day, quite soon, when you would seek a match for me. By your leave, I would speak to you of the matter, as I think it is a bit more complex than expected."

Father looked intrigued and sat back in his chair. "By all means, Cedrella." He said.

"I have taken time, during my tuition, to observe those pureblood males that I know to not be entered into a betrothal, or negotiations for same." Cedrella said. "There has been one who has consistently drawn my attention. He is … not badly put together, and attained high enough scores to be recruited straight into the Auror Academy out of Hogwarts. He is also in line to be Head of Family."

"You speak of Septimus." Father said.

"I see Callidora and Charis have kept you abreast of events at school." Cedrella said. Though her tone was neutral, she was somewhat amused. Trust her sisters to gossip about something like that.

"A betrothal between our Families would definitely be … tricky to negotiate." Father agreed. "And would take more than a little time. You are sure he is your choice?"

"Very much so, father. He has … impressed me, over the last few years. He may have Sorted Gryffindor, but there is a buried streak of Slytherin in him." Cedrella said, then smiled just slightly. "And it must be said, a not inconsiderable streak of Hufflepuff. And while I agree that getting the Weasleys to agree to a betrothal will take considerable time, that is not the sole reason I brought this up now."

"Go on." Father told her.

"He will be Head of Family in time." Cedrella reiterated. "And I honestly believe that given the right tools to work with, he could turn that Family's fortunes around. But he will need able assistance, especially in the political field. Gryffindors historically do poorly there, and while he has some small bit of Slytherin in him, I do not believe it will be enough on its own to allow him to prosper in the Wizengamot."

Father added two and two and got four. "You wish for additional tuition in the political field, in order to be able to guide him more effectively." He said. He thought about it for a few moments and then nodded. "It has been said that behind every great man is a great woman. Far be it from me to prevent you from becoming such a one. I will speak with Sirius first thing in the morning."

Cedrella nodded. "Thank you for your indulgence, father." She said, and took her leave.

Sirius, their Head of Family, was apparently somewhat surprised to discover what Cedrella was wanting, but after due consideration, was willing to grant her request. She was to join him and his family for a time, in order to allow for the tutelage she had requested.

Sirius spent the summer drilling her on the appropriate protocols involved in being a member of the visitor's gallery of the Wizengamot. From there, she would be able to observe the events of each meeting, permitting her to become familiar with how things were done in that august body. He further began drilling her on the current Heads and Lords in the Wizengamot, their political leanings, strengths and weaknesses.

Eventually, it was September, and the Wizengamot began a new session. Cedrella made her way through the Ministry Atrium early that morning, intending to get to the courtroom early enough to obtain a seat ideal for observation of as many people as possible.

She was partway across the Atrium when a triad of Aurors came off the elevator. Having not seen any of them in two years, it took Cedrella a moment to recognize the three. It was Septimus, Harfang, and Charlus.

Their appearance took Cedrella somewhat aback for a moment. They had all three still been boys the last time she'd seen them, still growing into gawky, ungainly limbs. That had changed markedly. All three of them seemed to have caught up to themselves, sporting broad-shouldered, muscular bodies that were enough so to be discernable even under robes.

The lion's share of her attention – pun fully intended – was on Septimus, however. He'd been something of a heartbreaker his last two years in Hogwarts. Good looking and with a likeable personality, he'd had a number of girls trailing after him, to whom he had paid no particular attention, much to their dismay. Insofar as Cedrella knew (and she had been in a position to know more than most) he had not courted anyone in school. Why that was, she did not know.

An additional two year's maturing physically had turned him from merely 'good looking' to 'positively stunning'. His hair had darkened several shades from the normal 'Weasley red', though it retained a few lighter-red streaks that framed his face. He'd also grown a small, neat beard and mustache. Both only just escaped the designation of 'scruff' enough to lend him a roguish air without looking unkempt. There was an intensity and predatory air to his movements and the way he observed his surroundings that he had not possessed in school – doubtlessly something that had been trained into him at the Academy.

If Cedrella had been less extensively drilled in acceptable behavior, she'd have been drooling. As it was, she had to catch herself up smartly before her stare became noticeable. Sweet Merlin but he'd become *quite* handsome since she'd seen him last!

Both amused and dismayed by her reaction to him, she gave herself a sharp mental swat and marched towards the elevators. While that goal took her very close to the triad, she didn't think they would greet her, despite having worked with her in Hogwarts to deal with the undesirables in Slytherin.

She was wrong. None other than Septimus intercepted her.

"Milady Black." He said, dipping his head in a restrained greeting. Despite that, Cedrella was not imagining it when she fancied that the expression in his eyes was far more welcoming. "It has been too long since we saw each other last."

"Milord Weasley." Cedrella greeted, deeply grateful to a lifetime of training for allowing her to appear totally unaffected, despite the fact she was still somewhat discomfited by her reaction to him. "I trust the Academy has treated you well? Have you graduated yet?"

"Just last month." He told her. "All three of us. We've not all that much to do at the moment, thanks be. If I might inquire as to your purpose here today?"

"I intend to observe today's Wizengamot session." Cedrella said. "I confess to an interest in politics and political intrigue. Lord Black saw fit to entertain my interest, and has agreed to instruct me in the matter."

Septimus' mouth quirked in amusement. "Better you than me, Milady. I will end up bouncing heads together in there when my time comes, if half what my own father says is true of that lot."

And that sort of thing was exactly why Cedrella was embarking on this extensive education. Septimus had less of the Gryffindor tendency to act without thinking than most, but he still had it. Which would prove disastrous to whatever ambitions he might have for his Family, when he became Head.

"I shan't keep you any longer, Milady, as we both have other places to be." Septimus said, giving her another restrained nod. She nodded in return, and they parted ways.

Oh my, but was she going to have things to tell her sisters later tonight!


	9. Growing Up, Growing Closer

Growing Up, Growing Closer

1935-1936

Septimus had been surprised to see Cedrella. Mostly because she'd turned into quite a looker since he'd last seen her. Last time he'd seen her had been on the train home after her fifth year and his seventh, chasing Abraxas away from her yet again because she'd blossomed that year into a young woman. As a result, Abraxas had returned to the questionable, reputation-endangering chasing of her he'd indulged in before the Marauders had really started kicking his ass.

Septimus'd been far too busy with NEWTs, planning for his future, and pranking idiots and assholes to pay too much mind to Cedrella's change in looks. He'd gotten the definite impression that his lack of interest had been a relief to her whenever they'd crossed paths or worked together to deal with idiots.

Going through Auror training hadn't really given him time to think about much of anything else. He'd honestly been startled to realize that he recognized Cedrella after two years. Harfang was going to end up teasing him about that later. Harfang had begun teasing about the three of them having a thing for Black girls sometime after he and Callidora had begun courting. Sad thing was, he wasn't entirely wrong. Even Charlus had seemed fine with hanging out with the girls in school.

These days, it was he and Charlus that were doing the teasing. The betrothal negotiations that had begun last month immediately after they'd graduated from the Academy were going well according to Harfang, and it was entirely likely he'd be married to Callidora in a year's time. Septimus had honestly been a little surprised, as the Longbottoms had a long history of being militantly pro-Light. To the point that they technically weren't a pureblood family by some purebloods' standard, as they made a point of marrying halfbloods or Muggleborns every few generations. The Weasleys and Potters did something similar.

According to the more militant pureblood fanatics, you only qualified as pureblood if you could trace a wizarding lineage for at least five generations on both sides. There hadn't been a Longbottom, Weasley, or Potter who could claim that in a really, really long time. The closest any of their families got was four generations on both sides. That said, the fact there'd been wizards with those last names in the same family for hundreds of years was enough for most folks to consider them purebloods.

All this was why Lucretia had been married off to a Prewitt. That family hadn't married anything other than a fellow pureblood in several hundred years. Lucretia, as a daughter of the Head of Family Black, would be expected to marry pureblood in order to keep that line pure. It wasn't as important for the daughters of the younger sons of the line, which was why Harfang's suit was being entertained. That and most of the available pureblood sons for this generation were already spoken for. He, Harfang and Charlus were among a small handful that didn't have a contract already.

Septimus rather thought the militant purebloods were idiots. The Potters, Longbottoms, and Weasleys hadn't had a single squib – ever. And the Weasleys and Longbottoms didn't have only one child per generation unless some disaster struck. The Blacks might enjoy multiple children per generation, but they were the only ones in the militant set. The cadet branches of Family Black, which had mostly been married off to halfbloods, hadn't produced any squibs either. The Head of Family line, though, produced at least one squib every few generations. The most recent one had been this generation, a son that had 'died' of a wizarding disease at the age of six. Septimus could only hope the poor kid hadn't actually been killed for the crime of being born without magic.

All the other 'true pureblood' families managed, at best, an 'heir and a spare' per generation, and frequently produced squibs. But none of them seemed to see the connection between their marriage practices and the health, magical strength, and number of their offspring.

Over the next few months, Septimus saw a *lot* of Cedrella. At first, it was mostly accidental. He, Harfang and Charlus had the overnight shift as the newest Aurors on the force, so they came off-shift very early in the morning. Meanwhile, Cedrella arrived early in order to get a good seat in the Wizengamot session. Four times in two weeks they arrived in the Atrium at the same time. Each time, they exchanged greetings and a few other pleasantries.

Then the pattern altered somewhat, and they started running into Cedrella *every* morning. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Cedrella had altered her pattern slightly in order to meet up with them each morning. The question was why. Septimus didn't even try to figure it out. A Slytherin enacting a plot was an inscrutable creature that no Gryffindor had a hope of figuring out. All too soon, those meetings became the best part of Septimus' day.

Two years ago, there'd been a shift in things in the wizarding world. Almost imperceptible at the time, save for a slight increase in Grindelwald's activities. Since then, however, things were getting more and more strained in Europe. That muggle was stirring up as much trouble as he could manage, which was leading to a lot of unrest amongst the muggles in the area. That unrest seemed to be targeting anyone 'different', resulting in an increased danger of discovery for European wizards.

Worse, Grindelwald was definitely up to no good. The reports from the European wizarding community on that man were not good. He seemed to be building up to something, gathering followers and items of magical power.

Unfortunately, where the problem came in was that the Ministry was ignoring the danger signs. All this was happening 'over there'. It could not, would not come to England's shores, and was therefore of no concern. Any attempt at remonstrating with the Head of the DMLE (never mind anyone higher up the food chain) was completely ignored, even when it was veteran Aurors sounding a warning.

The Ministry continued its distinct lack of recruiting for any sector of the DMLE. Their triad had been the largest group recruited in ten years. Every other year, a maximum of two people were recruited for the Hit Wizard squad, Aurors, and general DMLE combined. Some years, there hadn't been any recruits at all.

Worse, while the Auror drilling in various matters had been thorough, there hadn't been more than the most basic of dueling training. The bulk of the attention in training had been in recognizing what spells were being flung at you and working together with your partner. Learning to actually fight had been a somewhat secondary concern. After all, there were no Dark Wizards in England currently. Rule breakers certainly, but never Dark Wizards … despite all evidence to the contrary.

To say it was exasperating was a vast understatement. Unfortunately, there was little their triad could do at the moment. They were on graveyard guard detail in the Ministry, not on patrol out in the world at large.

Finally, just after the Yule break, their triad was permitted to patrol, under the aegis of a veteran Auror pair. While patrolling proved to mostly be as boring as nighttime guard duty, they at least got to be around people. There was also the odd chance of running across someone doing something nefarious. This, of course, altered their schedule, but they were still in the Atrium early in the morning – simply coming instead of going, so they still ran into Cedrella every day.

By Easter break, the three of them had been judged capable of handling actual cases, again with veteran Auror backup. This proved far more interesting for all three of them. Granted, there was nothing in the way of combat, as they were given very small, easy cases to start with. That said, figuring out the whys and wherefores of the problem was a heck of a lot more interesting than wandering around hoping for trouble to pop up.

Harfang and Callidora were finally married in late June of 1936. As befit a wedding between two such prominent families, it was pretty much the event of the year, and everyone who could possibly wrangle an invitation did so.

Wizarding marriage ceremonies bore little resemblance to their Muggle counterparts. For one thing, while there were betrothal contracts, dowries, and such things, these arrangements were between the families in question. The Ministry had absolutely no say, influence, or place in any part of the marriage process. The only involvement the Ministry had was to record, after the fact, who had married who and when for posterity.

The actual ceremony itself was mostly private, with only the couple, their parents, and their Heads of Family (if their parents weren't the Head) standing witness and giving their blessings as the couple swore their vows. Those vows were sworn to Magic itself, and unbreakable. There was no such thing as divorce in the wizarding world.

A couple could break up after the marriage, but it was rare. Breaking up a marriage was reserved for such egregious sins as adultery and abuse, both of which were thankfully very, very rare. Unfortunately, while a couple could live apart the rest of their lives, they would still be married to one another until one of them died.

The invitations that had been sent out were for the wizard equivalent of the reception party after the wedding itself. Here, there was little difference between wizard and muggle events. There was dancing, toasts and blessings to the new bride and groom, and gifts given. The party frequently lasted long into the night for the guests. The bride and groom however were fully expected to sneak out as early as they could possibly manage. They were, of course, gently teased for doing so, and it was part of the fun to try to keep them from sneaking off if you could.

There followed after that a month-long seclusion, wherein the couple mostly kept to themselves. Whenever possible, the couple spent the entire month in solitude. If that wasn't possible, one or both were permitted to go to work (or attend a funeral, or such things), but expected to keep their time away from their new spouse as minimal as possible. Extraneous socializing after work, or things of that nature were heavily frowned upon.

Given the financial status of the pair involved, Harfang and Callidora would be able to spend the entire month in seclusion unless a familial emergency popped up. With one of their group out of commission, Septimus and Charlus were put back on patrol and other light duties, so as to reduce the chances of them getting into a fight when they were down a member of their team.

The lighter schedule meant that Septimus had a chance to visit home for more than a few scant minutes. He decided to take advantage of the situation and headed to his parents' house every weekend that month. The last weekend of the month, his kid brothers came home from Hogwarts, making for a full family reunion.

Victor had completed his final year at Hogwarts, while Felix had completed his fifth, and Bilius his second. The four boys had a rather rambunctious reunion, as Septimus decided to throw dignity to the winds. They ended up in a four-way wrestling/tickle fight for a while, until the other three decided to gang up on Septimus.

When they finally wore each other out, and were sprawled on the floor, Septimus got caught up on the goings-on at Hogwarts. It turned out that his brothers had decided to carry on the Marauder legacy, rather than let it fade into history. Victor and Felix had begun working together in Septimus' final year unbeknownst to him, and had included a few of their closest, most trustworthy friends in the campaign. Bilius and friends of his were taking over the bulk of the task now, with Victor graduating and Felix heading into sixth year.

Septimus was delighted that his brothers had decided to follow in those particular footsteps. Keeping bullies in line was a good cause. He was also dismayed that their intervention was still necessary. He'd hoped that by now the teachers would have woken up to the reality of the situation and started to act, but evidently they were content to continue to ignore the problem.

In a way, he shouldn't have been surprised, given that the members of the Wizengamot had a nearly identical problem with recognizing a problem when one existed. All he could do was hope that it wouldn't blow up in everyone's faces – and stand ready to help clean up the mess if it did.

Once Harfang returned from his seclusion, the triad was quickly returned to their regular duties investigating cases. About a week after that, Septimus came to a decision. He'd started out talking to Cedrella in the mornings merely to be polite. But the more they interacted, the better he got to know her and the more he came to like her. Despite her family, she was a decent person.

She had definite views about muggles. Views that clashed with his. But she seemed content to dismiss them as violent (which he had to admit they frequently were) and leave it at that. She didn't share her family's predilection for Muggle baiting (or worse), and she even admitted they were frequently quite clever with their gadgets that got around a lack of magic. He'd begun to have real fun debating with her about them. Those debates had quickly expanded to include debates on a number of other subjects.

He'd been surprised to discover that while they did have differing views, they were not so diametrically opposed as was usually the case when a Black and a Weasley were involved.

The decision was simple enough. Instead of keeping the debate short and then making his excuses, Septimus began to make excuses to stay in Cedrella's company. By the end of the year, they'd gotten to the point where they'd spend hours sitting in the Leaky Cauldron or Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour talking about anything and everything under the sun. And the more they talked, the more Septimus came to enjoy her company and actively like her. He kept that to himself, as the likelihood of her permitting him to court her was VERY low. He'd be content with what he could get.


	10. Unholy Alliance Part 1

Unholy Alliance Part 1

1938 - 1939

Cedrella spent much of the next years attached to Sirius, her Head of Family, at the hip, learning everything he was willing to impart. She proved to be an enthusiastic and particularly adept pupil. Cedrella hadn't quite expected to truly enjoy learning the ins and outs of the Wizengamot, but she did, and soon discovered she had a flair for it. Sirius took full advantage of her skill and enthusiasm … and her sex.

While women could and sometimes did act as Regents and Proxies for a family, it was rare. There was normally a well-defined line of succession along the male line that ensured a woman's intervention wasn't required. Every once in a while however there was either a disaster that killed all the adult males in the line of succession or a thoroughly incompetent Head of Family that neglected to set up a line of succession before his death. At that point, one of the women of the line inevitably got involved.

It was not easy. Women were seen as less competent (to put it nicely) at a great many things than men were, and this was especially true in the field of politics. Female Regents and Proxies had a very hard row to hoe if they wanted to be listened to. It made little sense, but that was the way it was.

Sirius took full advantage of that state of affairs as Cedrella's skill became apparent. The other Heads and Lords governed their tongues in his presence. They were not anywhere near as discreet if Cedrella was about. Thus she became Sirius' 'snake in the grass'. She kept an ear out for what the other Wizengamot member really thought about various things, what they were planning, with whom, and which of the group might be swayed to another line of thinking. She also kept her eye and ear out for things people shouldn't be doing but were, for potential use as blackmail material if such was needed.

For herself, Cedrella was only too happy to act in this capacity for her Head of Family, as it would be the best possible way she could help Septimus in the future. One of the two of them was going to have to have their finger on the pulse of events in the Wizengamot, after all. Septimus was personable enough to make allies easily, but he lacked the suspicious, cutthroat edge he needed to make him a truly effective politician, and Cedrella could assist with that.

She made a lot of notes over the years, filling several diaries with names, political leanings, who'd voted for which law, who was accepting bribes, and whatever other bits of information she could glean that would be of use in the future.

When she wasn't up to her eyeballs in plotting, Cedrella could most often be found in Septimus' company. They crossed paths every morning once she learned what his schedule was, and when he and his partners were advanced, they ended up crossing paths twice a day, as the Wizengamot sessions ended right about the time the day shift ended.

It didn't take long for the two of them to end up parking themselves in the Leaky or at Fortescue's in order to talk for a while without risking Cedrella's reputation. Cedrella soon came to enjoy those talks, as they invariably ended up debating some one thing or other. She was delighted to discover that while Septimus' world view was definitely Gryffindorish and Light-side in orientation, he was not as extreme in his views as some on that side of the political divide could be, nor was he as extreme as Weasleys historically were. He was far closer to the middle than the far end of the spectrum.

Not even Cedrella was entirely sure when their daily talks went from 'friends meeting up to gossip' to 'courting'. The transition was so gradual and subtle that it was hard to pin down an exact moment when it happened officially. Ok, that was a lie. Cedrella knew *exactly* when they tipped over the line.

It happened in the latter months of 1938. Cedrella had settled in at Fortescue's alone, as Septimus had been held up briefly, needing to finish and file some paperwork before he could go off-shift. So naturally, Abraxas, who had not given up on acquiring her as his wife despite her firm refusals of him, showed up and started being his smarmy, overbearing self. She ignored him, up to the point where he said he was sending a betrothal offer to her father.

"He will not accept it." Cedrella said, her voice cold. "You and your Family are far beneath the Blacks. To marry such a creature as yourself would be an unacceptably large step down. There are far better prospects available."

Septimus apparently had the best timing ever, because he'd walked into the shop right at the tail end of her declaration. He assessed the situation with a glance, and closed the distance between them. He bowed to her, the sort of social gesture they'd long gotten past needing. Not that Abraxas would know that, which was probably why Septimus had included it. That it was also considered desirable to return to such overt displays of genteel respect towards one's intended during a courtship was a fact that Cedrella promptly took vicious advantage of.

She lifted her hand to Septimus, allowing him to kiss her knuckles – a move she had not made to Abraxas, and never would. "My darling." She greeted, giving him a warm smile.

She caught the brief look of startlement in his eyes at her address – something she'd never called him – but years of learning to deal with unpredictable events as first a Marauder and then an Auror allowed him to cover it fairly smoothly.

"I apologize for my tardiness, but business delayed me, my dear." Septimus said. 'Dear' being something he'd never called her, but was again something quite common during courting.

Abraxas was not slow to pick up on all of this. The poisonous look he gave the pair of them was quite amusing.

"This?" He snarled. "This homeless, worthless beggar is your choice?" Abraxas scoffed. "I would have thought a Black would have more ambition than to push out a dozen babies and live in squalor."

Septimus' expression at that made Cedrella blink before she mentally gave a smug, delighted purr. He was coldly furious, and probably only seconds from drawing his wand, if that look was anything to go by.

"Even if that was the eventual fate of the future Lady Weasley." Septimus snapped. "It would still be a better fate than being forced to bed a slimy, smarmy, abusive waste of air and magic like yourself." He glared. "We are no longer boys, Malfoy. Cedrella made it clear during her school days that your attentions were not desired. Harass her *now*, and the results will not be embarrassing pranks. I can and will call you out in defense of her honor."

It would be a fight that Malfoy, for all his superior airs, would lose. Badly. Oh, Cedrella knew that he probably had a thorough education in the Dark Arts, but Abraxas was first and foremost a politician, not a duelist. Septimus, on the other hand, was a born warrior, and would make mincemeat out of Abraxas in very short order.

It would seem that her campaign to wiggle into Septimus' affections had finally borne real fruit. To say Cedrella was pleased was to vastly understate the case. She had, after all, been working on Septimus for three years. In this one instance, it was quite a pleasure to see a man willing to get in a fight over her.

Abraxas, not being lethally stupid, departed in an offended swirl of robes, leaving a distinct odor of singed ego in his wake. Septimus glared after him for a moment before he huffed out a breath and settled into the chair beside Cedrella.

"I apologize for my behavior, Cedrella. He just makes me very angry. You'd think he'd have wit enough to realize you don't want anything to do with him and give up."

"Unfortunately, it would seem he does not have that much intelligence." Cedrella said. "And there is no need to apologize."

They talked for a little bit, then Septimus gave her an odd look. "You realize he thinks we're courting, don't you?"

Cedrella grinned. "Yes."

"Would your father allow him to … "

"My father knows very well what my thoughts on Abraxas Malfoy are." Cedrella said with no small amount of asperity. "Abraxas would have to bankrupt his family and sell the members into slavery before my father would entertain any notion of him courting me, never mind a betrothal. And my Head of Family is of the same mind."

Though in Sirius' case, he was willing to leave Abraxas high and dry in favor of Septimus. He was enough of a political animal to understand that marrying into Light-side families would help the Black Family's reputation. Septimus was helping his own cause (albeit unknowingly at this point) by his actions over the years. It was readily apparent to anyone that paid attention that Septimus was going to be *quite* the force to deal with in time.

Septimus gave an amused chuckle. "Well then, it sounds as if there's nothing to worry about." He said.

They continued to talk for a while longer, but Cedrella could tell that Septimus was working himself up to asking something. She let him do it in peace, rather than trying to draw it out of him. While she dearly hoped that whatever was on his mind involved courting, there was no guarantee of that and she'd rather not make a fool of herself. Towards the end of their usual meet-up time, Septimus finally gave Cedrella an oddly serious look.

"Cedrella … " Septimus hesitated a moment, then forged on. "I have come to think on you quite fondly over the last few years." He admitted. "Enough so that occasionally, the thought of … well … "

Again, he trailed off, much to Cedrella's concealed amusement. Apparently, Gryffindor courage did not extend to things like asking to court someone. She was hard-put to conceal her glee that he'd finally come to this point, and tried her best to seem attentive and nonjudgmental of his atypical hesitance.

Septimus took a deep breath, then spoke again. "I would be honored if you would permit me to pay court to you." He finally said.

Cedrella smiled openly, ducking her head in a coquettish gesture she'd learned from Callidora. "I would be honored to allow you to pay court to me, milord." She replied. She promptly had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing aloud at Septimus' immediate pleased smile.

"I fear I must take my leave." Septimus said at that point. "There will be much to discuss with my father tonight. I will see you tomorrow."

He offered her a slight bow, and she nodded, offering him her hand again. That got her a rakish, pleased grin as he kissed her knuckles then made his way out. Once she was sure he was well clear, she made tracks for her family home and her father, finding him once more in his study.

"Father." She said as she entered the room after he called for her to enter.

"Cedrella." Father greeted, then, after a more assessing glance. "You seem quite pleased today. Enjoyable talk with Septimus?"

"Far more so than usual, father." Cedrella readily admitted. "Septimus was slightly delayed this afternoon, and in his absence, that odious Abraxas attempted to make a play for me again. Septimus arrived at a very timely moment. I made out as if Septimus and I were courting. Septimus caught on very quickly, and went along with it. Even threatened to call Abraxas out in defense of my honor."

Father looked quite pleased. "Well, it would seem that your campaign to win his regard is working."

"Better than I realized, father. After Abraxas had gone, towards the end of our usual meeting … Septimus asked permission to court me. I fully expect you to get an owl from him and his father by the end of the month. Perhaps sooner, depending on how convincing Septimus is."

Father sat back in his chair, looking well pleased. "This is excellent news, Cedrella. I had not thought you would get quite this far this soon – the Weasleys are notoriously leery of anything that smacks of the Dark. Have you told Sirius yet?"

"No. I wanted to warn you first. I have no idea how Septimus' father views this, or if he even knows, so I thought to warn you first, as his father might come to you in an ill-thought-out attempt to warn you – and me – off."

Father laughed. "Septimus' father isn't quite that foolish, Cedrella, but I appreciate the warning. Now you'd better go and fill Sirius in. The days and weeks ahead are about to get very interesting."


	11. Unholy Alliance, Part 2

Unholy Alliance Part 2

1938 – 1939

Septimus headed for the small house he shared with Charlus immediately after talking to Cedrella. He, Charlus and Harfang had shared the house since shortly after they'd graduated. These days of course, it was just Septimus and Charlus that lived there. He'd been surprised when the two men had offered to live with him. Even after seven years of school and friendship, he'd never lost his awareness of the massive gap between his social station and the station Harfang and Charlus enjoyed. Some small part of him had expected them to go their separate ways after school. Not only had they not done so, they had insisted on splitting the costs involved in the living on their own with him equally so that all three of them could live out from under their parents' roofs for a while.

Septimus was pretty sure that the other two men had lied to him about how expensive the place was, and had reduced his 'third' of the costs involved in staying there in deference to his more limited funds. He had opted not to say anything about it. There was a time and a place for stubborn pride, and this wasn't it. If Harfang and Charlus set their minds to something, it was *incredibly* difficult to budge them. Trying to force them to spilt the costs in even thirds would have been a constant running battle, and not worth the effort.

Any doubts he'd had along those lines had been laid to rest since Harfang's marriage. He'd moved with Callidora into one of the Longbottom homes, and Septimus' expenses towards the house's upkeep hadn't raised so much as a knut. While the matter did bother him, he was grateful to his friends at the same time. Not having to shoulder 'equal' expenses meant that the tiny little nest egg he'd started as a kid had grown over the years. Enough so that these days, it didn't seem a waste of time and effort to use a vault separate from his parents'. It was still small, but it was better than many of his predecessors had had when they began courting.

Charlus grinned at him when he came in. "And how was the fair Cedrella today?"

Septimus snorted. "You do realize, Charlus, that Harfang and I both are going to give you *such* a hard time when you fall head over heels in love with some girl, don't you?" He pointed out. "That said, Cedrella is fine. I'm dangerously close to hexing Abraxas into oblivion however."

Charlus made a face. "He was after her *again*?" He shook his head. "That man has no sense whatever. She's going to hex him impotent if he doesn't watch his step."

"No kidding." Septimus said, then grinned. "The good news is … she's agreed to let me court her."

Charlus gave an amused snort, then patted Septimus on the arm. "I don't envy you. Your father is going to have an apoplexy."

Septimus sighed. "Don't I know it. Though I'm hoping how much I've mentioned her and our talks – and the results of those talks – will have softened him up a bit."

The next day, Septimus made his way to his parents' home. It felt more than a little like walking into a battle zone before the battle broke out. His father wasn't going to be all that happy about him wanting to court and marry Cedrella. Septimus didn't doubt he could sway his father, but there was probably going to be a good bit of shouting in the process.

Fortunately, his mother was home. With himself and Victor out of the house, Felix rooming with a friend and only visiting occasionally and Bilius in school, mother had taken up a part-time job as a midwife and nanny to fill some of her time. And, Septimus strongly suspected, to allow her to mother small children until such time as he and his brothers provided her with grandchildren to spoil. Mother had the calmer temperament of his parents, so she might be able to keep his father from exploding too badly.

"Septimus, darling! Good to see you. And during the week no less! To what do we owe the pleasure? You haven't been injured, have you?" His mother asked, then hugged him.

To forestall an immediate physical examination for injuries, Septimus held up both hands. "Not injured in the slightest, mother. I asked for the day off as I've family business that needs tending."

"Oh?" Father asked, coming alongside his wife to clap Septimus on the arm. "What sort of family business?"

Septimus took a deep breath and mentally crossed his fingers. "The courtship and betrothal contracts kind of business." He said.

He nearly laughed, because it was instantly clear he had his mother's full support. She got very big-eyed and visibly excited. "Oh, Septimus! Truly? You've finally found yourself a witch? That's wonderful! You must tell us all about her. I'd no idea you were even entertaining the notion!"

Septimus gave in to the urge to laugh when his mother grabbed his hand and tried to tow him to the family dinner table in her excitement. He let her lead him there, sharing an amused look with his father in the process.

"Well, it sort of snuck up on me, to be honest." Septimus said as he let himself be guided into a chair near the head of the table. His father took his customary seat at the head of the table, and his mother sat directly across from Septimus, allowing the three of them to talk face-to-face without trouble. "I wasn't actually actively looking."

That alone had his father (who was not exactly stupid) frowning slightly in suspicion. After all, there was really only one female he'd been in regular contact with for love to have a chance to sneak up on him. Love at first sight was still possible of course, but unlikely.

"That does tend to be how it goes, if you don't fall in love at first sight." His mother said. "It sneaks up on you and bites you in the rear." She shot a look at her husband, then grinned.

Septimus, well aware by now of the story of how they'd gotten together, had to laugh again. The story was actually fairly similar to how things had gone thus far with Cedrella, though his mother was not from a traditionally Dark family. She was the daughter of two Muggleborns, and had apparently been quite smitten with Septimus' father through much of her school days, while Father had taken his sweet time realizing he liked her in return.

His father gave her a tolerant look. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Never." She proclaimed.

Septimus was deeply grateful to her for diverting his father and keeping him amused. It would help with his father's temper.

"So." His mother said. "Who is she?"

Showtime. "Cedrella Black."

"What!" His father barked.

Well, at least it hadn't been a full-on bellow. "Father, please. I *know* the Family Black's reputation. This generation's daughters don't seem to share it. They're all of them decent women. Oh, they have airs and think themselves superior to muggleborns and muggles, but … " Septimus shrugged. "That's as far as it goes, with the lot of them. Merlin, Cedrella took *Muggle Studies*, father, and you *know* that's not the done thing in that family!"

Father looked sour. "I'd say she's bewitched you, but you've been gone on her since she started Hogwarts, and not even an eleven year old child from that family is capable of the sort of magic it'd take to bend someone to their will. And you were out of her sphere of influence for two years – more than long enough for a potion to wear off."

Septimus snorted. "I've not been gone on her since she was eleven father." He said. "I just didn't approve of someone trying to force her into a corner. Abraxas is the worst sort of bully imaginable. I wouldn't put it past him to have literally forced her at some point if someone hadn't intervened. And her applying to her head of Family could only do so much good, with her away at Hogwarts most of the year. By the time the Black Head found out she'd been potioned or hexed, it would have been far too late to do anything about it."

Father huffed, still looking less than pleased. "I suppose you are determined in this?" He groused.

Septimus nodded.

Father rolled his eyes. "As I know what it is to be a fool in love." He slanted a look at his wife that was equal parts exasperated and adoring. "And as you're an Auror and those partners of yours would have caught any spells or potions before now, I'll not fight this. But do not expect me to be happy about it."

Septimus was only too happy to get that much. He'd anticipated a much more severe fight than this over the whole thing. "That will be enough father."

Father sighed. "I'll get in contact with Sirius this afternoon, and start the wrangling. It's not going to be pretty, son."

"You never know. I do, after all, have Cedrella on my side, and she's been thick as thieves with Sirius for several years now. If it weren't for the fact that Headship is always patrilineal if a male heir exists in the line, I'd think he was grooming her to be the next Head."

"He'd be well served to do so. I've heard rumors about his grandson, Orion, that do not paint the lad in a good light. Evidently, he didn't attend the Ball until he was nine."

Septimus' eyebrows went up. "Nine? That's rather late. Usually it's seven. Sometimes earlier than that."

"I also have heard that even at that late date, he made a fairly poor showing." his father admitted.

Septimus shook his head. "We can only hope Sirius and Arcturus after him last until a better potential Head appears in the line if it's as bad as all that."

"Agreed." His father said.

As much as father disliked the Black family, seeing it go to rack and ruin would be a blow. The Blacks were one of the oldest pureblood lines in the UK. They had, in that time, managed to remain one of the most influential as well. Seeing such a powerful Family crumble would be painful.

Thankfully, neither Septimus nor Cedrella were required to attend the initial negotiations. Their attendance would only be required once the two families had gotten to the point where the marriage was approved by both Heads. At that point, it would become a question of details specific to the marriage itself, which would require their input.

Much to Septimus' amusement, he and Cedrella quickly fell into the habit of filling each other in on their respective parents' moods and any insights they gleaned into how the initial negotiations were going.

Septimus found himself surprised at how fast and smoothly things were going. It was quickly apparent that despite their grousing, both family Heads (and Cedrella's father) were in favor of the match. All three men seemed to be going out of their way to make the negotiations as smooth and easy as possible. Considering the families involved, that was no mean feat.

Before either of them knew it, two months had passed and the more intimate negotiations had begun. Sirius, who had fully expected to be providing the lion's share of the finances for the marriage, was surprised and gratified to discover that Septimus had a respectable nest egg of money he'd earned since childhood. It was far too small for the pair to live more than a bare-bones life, but it was more than most of the Weasley clan could have claimed when they married, and spoke well to Septimus' potential husbandry of the Weasley Headship when the time came.

Unbeknownst to Septimus, Sirius, vastly relieved at this sign of fiscal responsibility, had been far more generous than he had initially been inclined to be with the dowry for Cedrella. Combined with her father's dowry, the pair would be comfortably set. Not rich by any means, but well above the usual Weasley standard. If Septimus was half as good a steward as he seemed to be, they'd increase that wealth over time.

There was a good reason for Sirius' initial caution. The Weasleys had, a few hundred years ago, been very nearly the equal of the Blacks in money, land, and influence. Unfortunately for them, they'd hit a run of Heads who were spendthrifts, gamblers, and generally idiots where money was concerned. By the time the dust cleared, the Weasleys had been reduced to a paltry few galleons in the vault and one small estate that had originally been a vacation cottage … and a staggering amount of debt owed. From the records of the Black Head of the time, it had been clear to Sirius that the Weasleys had been damn lucky to escape indentured servitude to the goblins to clear the debt.

The debt had been paid off eventually, but the damage to the Weasley name had been far longer lasting. Worse, without any start-up capital and a distinct lack of people or goblins willing to loan it to them, they'd not been able to get out of the hole those irresponsible Heads had dug for the family. Thus had the Weasleys fallen into ignominy.

He'd been slightly dubious about Cedrella's preference for the man, but over the last few years he'd begun to see what Cedrella saw in him. Potential. Vast amounts of it. It was entirely possible that if Septimus listened to her, with Cedrella at his side, he'd be able to drag the Weasley name back into prominence once more. It made Sirius more than a little eager to watch the pair in the years to come.


	12. Unholy Alliance, Part 3

Unholy Alliance Part 3

Weasley Cottage, June 1939

Septimus paced uneasily in his room, watched by his highly amused parents. He was getting married today. Somehow, it didn't seem possible. He was so wound up he could barely see straight.

"Lad, if you don't calm down, you're going to pass out." His father said. "Quit pacing about like a caged dragon. It's time to start getting ready anyway."

Septimus gave an amused snort, but obeyed, slowing to a stop near the door to his room. "Like you were any better."

"No, son … I was worse." His father readily admitted with a smile. "Your grandfather threatened to hit me with a Rennervate at one point, I was so close to passing out."

Septimus laughed. Then he walked out of his room to the bathroom and closed the bathroom door behind him, grateful it was time to begin preparations and give his mind something to do other than fret.

Septimus had been baffled, the first time he'd observed even part of a Muggle wedding. Wizarding weddings were so very different from Muggle weddings. His confusion had only deepened when he learned about all the usual traditions surrounding muggle weddings.

Or more precisely, the remarkable lack of truly meaningful traditions that seemed to surround muggle weddings. Oh, they had a few, like the items a bride was supposed to have at the actual wedding - something old, new, borrowed, blue. White or cream being the traditional colors for a bride, depending on her state of sexual purity. That, however, seemed to be the end of it. Even more baffling to Septimus had been the concept of divorce. By comparison, Wizarding weddings were up to their eyeballs in meaningful and mostly necessary traditions.

One of the few not-necessary traditions was that there were absolutely no parties or gift-giving of any kind prior to the wedding. To do so was seen as severely bad luck. How that superstition got started, no one knew, but it had been around for a very, very long time.

Sexual purity was not (to the surprise of many a muggleborn) of any importance when entering into a marriage. That said, fidelity once married was of extreme importance. Infidelity was one of only two acceptable reasons to separate (as divorce was impossible) from one's spouse, the other being abuse. The burden of fidelity was shared equally between the married couple - unlike among muggles, there was not a double standard where men were more easily forgiven for infidelity than women.

Of nearly equal importance was coming into the marriage without any trace of duplicity or artifice. As a result of that, it had become tradition that colognes, makeup, glamours, artificial hair color, and anything else along those lines were forbidden. Additionally, wedding robes were deliberately simple in cut, not designed to conceal or enhance any given physical feature.

Once in the bathroom, Septimus took a thorough shower using a special scentless soap. While it wasn't required, it had become tradition to bathe thoroughly just before the wedding – symbolically washing away all that came before, and any impurities on one's person. That done, Septimus pulled the deep purple robe over his head and smoothed it out before heading back out into his bedroom where his parents were waiting for him.

Wizarding brides always wore a shade of pink, and the grooms wore purple. This was primarily because of the fact that the most commonly used flowers that represented fidelity were in shades of pink and purple, thus linking those colors with that quality. Everyone else in the wedding party wore cream colored robes with either pink or purple accents, depending on which of the wedding party they were family to.

Unlike muggle weddings which took place all year 'round and were most often done indoors, Wizarding weddings took place in spring, summer, or fall, and whenever possible outdoors. Many a wedding party had resorted to canopies or spells to keep things dry in the face of an unexpected squall during the proceedings. Only truly foul or outright dangerous weather could drive the wedding indoors and there was sufficient warning of such foul weather, the wedding was usually changed to another, more clement day.

Septimus sat down on a chair that had been brought into the room. His mother pulled a basket of flowers she'd brought with her onto the bed, and began weaving them into a crown on Septimus' head, anchoring the crown in his deliberately-grown-longer hair so it didn't get blown off by a strong breeze. There were cherry blossoms to symbolize love and good fortune, and purple amaranth and pink rosemary for fidelity. As the groom, Septimus' crown had much more amaranth in it than rosemary, though it still had some of the latter. Cedrella would be wearing a similar crown, but with much more rosemary than amaranth.

It didn't take his mother long to construct the simple crown, by tradition the only ornament permitted the bridge and groom. Once that was done, Septimus stood up and the three of them headed out. As it was June and the weather was cooperating, Septimus was barefoot, while his mother and father were wearing simple sandals. Their own robes, while more elaborate than what Septimus and Cedrella would be wearing, were still far simpler than was the norm for day-to-day wear. Septimus' father also had on the belt that signified him as Head of the groom's Family.

The back lawn of Weasley Cottage had been transformed. There were pink and purple blossoms of every variety that had good meanings everywhere. Garlands and swags and wreaths of them draped on every available surface and twined in among the leaves of the trees, making it look like they were abloom.

A largeish circle of bare earth had been cleared in the lawn, on which to conduct the brief ceremony. The edges of the circle were ringed with stones buried in the earth that had been carved with runes – runes for protection, fidelity, fertility and luck among other things. There were also a few runes designed to contain the backwash of magic that would result when the vows were sealed and accepted by magic.

Those runes were not always needed, but they were always included in marriage circles like this. The strength of the backwash depended on a number of largely unpredictable factors aside from the magical strength of the pair swearing the vows. There had been cases, before the runes were included as a matter of course, of the backwash affecting things as far as twenty kilometers away. Granted, the effects were never destructive or punitive, but it was still problematic. In every such case, plants and animals within range of the wash, and any couples (married or not) that bore enough love for each other to be inclined to carnal relations … well, let's just say there was a bumper crop of births and plant growth after such weddings.

That backwash was also the primary reason behind why only parents and heads of families were present at the wedding ceremony itself. Parents were largely immune to the arousal effect of the backwash because half of it was generated by their child, and Heads were protected from influence of any sort by the magics that made them Heads. Siblings were not traditionally included in the wedding party because one or more of them could be underage, and even if they were half immune thanks to being so closely blood-related to one of the wedding party, exposing underage witches and wizards to such a backwash was anathema. Anyone else would get hit by the full effect, thus they were forbidden from attending.

The backwash was also why the ceremony was conducted on bare earth or stone. It was very common for plants (even trees) to spring up in the circle if it wasn't stripped of plants and seeds. There was more than one rather amusing tale of a particularly strong backwash growing a ten-foot-tall tree in mere moments, hoisting one or more of the unsuspecting wedding party aloft as it grew. Such tales were amusing to tell, but no one wanted to have it actually happen to them, so clearing the ground had become required.

Cedrella was escorted out by both her parents and Sirius. Septimus couldn't help but smile when he saw her, because despite the deliberate simplicity of the wedding robes, she looked … truly beautiful. If he was going to be completely trite and smitten, she looked radiant.

Not that he'd ever admit to that. Not after all the teasing he and Charlus had given Harfang when he'd made the mistake of admitting to thinking that very thing when he saw Callidora in her wedding robe. He'd never hear the end of it, and he wasn't dumb enough to invite that sort of aggravation when it could be avoided.

Everyone stepped into the circle, careful not to step on the runes (another bad luck omen). Septimus and Cedrella took their places at the center of the circle, while their parents and Sirius took their places near the ring of runes. Once they were all in position, Septimus' father spoke.

"I, Gaius Weasley, Head of the Weasley Family, do here invoke the Family Magics, that they bear witness to and bless the union of this child of my Family."

There was an immediate wash of warmth and welcome, and the day's light seemed to brighten as ancient magics stirred.

Sirius spoke next, his words identical to those of Septimus' father, except for reciting his own name and Family. There was another immediate swirl of ancient magic, this one deep and dark, deepening the shadows that had been brought into sharp relief by the wash of light.

Gaius spoke again, this time with his wife, as parents of the groom. "I, Gaius Weasley, father of the groom, do here give my blessing to this union." His mother's was the same, just with her name. Then Cedrella's parents gave their blessings. One after the other, four magical threads wove around the circle, invisible to the naked eye but each easily discerned from the other, one from each parent.

Finally, it was Septimus' turn. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and then spoke. "I, Septimus Weasley, in the name of the spirit of Magic that resides within us all, by the life that courses within my blood and the love that resides within my heart, take thee Cedrella Black to my hand, my heart, and my spirit, to be my chosen one. To desire thee and be desired by thee, to possess thee, and be possessed by thee, without shame, for naught can exist in the purity of my love for thee. I promise to love thee wholly and completely without restraint, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in poverty, in life and beyond, where we shall meet, remember, and love again. I shall not seek to change thee in any way. I shall respect thee, thy beliefs, thy people, and thy ways as I respect myself."

Cedrella smiled briefly at him before she spoke. "I, Cedrella Black, in the name of the spirit of Magic that resides within us all, by the life that courses within my blood and the love that resides within my heart, take thee Septimus Weasley to my hand, my heart, and my spirit, to be my chosen one. To desire thee and be desired by thee, to possess thee, and be possessed by thee, without shame, for naught can exist in the purity of my love for thee. I promise to love thee wholly and completely without restraint, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in poverty, in life and beyond, where we shall meet, remember, and love again. I shall not seek to change thee in any way. I shall respect thee, thy beliefs, thy people, and thy ways as I respect myself."

Two more magical threads joined the rest as they spoke, weaving around the pair. Once Cedrella finished her vows, they looked at each other, and then in chorus spoke one final time. "These be my vows to thee, sworn on my life and my magic, so mote it be."

The magic coalesced into a firestorm, just visible at the periphery of one's vision as a warping, wobbling mirage tinted with all the colors of the rainbow. Warmth, love, and devotion swamped everyone present inside the runic circle as the magic swirled around them, seeking an outlet … and only finding one. Like a tornado collapsing in on itself, the bulk of the magic wrapped itself around Septimus and Cedrella, binding them together in just-visible chains of magic before it slowly dissipated.

It took a few minutes for everyone to clear their heads and regain their equilibrium. Sort of. Septimus and Cedrella, having absorbed the bulk of the magic, were very wide-eyed and slightly on the hyper side. This would be the other reason the newly married pair were fully expected to ditch the after-party as early as they could humanly manage. All that energy had to go somewhere, sooner rather than later.

"Well." Sirius said, blinking his eyes a few extra times. "That was one of the stronger bindings I've seen."

"Agreed." Gaius said, giving his head a shake to clear it. "You two all right?" He asked the new couple.

"Yeah. Buzzing, but functional." Septimus said, then glanced at Cedrella. "You?"

"The same." She said, patting his arm reassuringly.

"Well then. Off to the party we go." said Cedrella's mother. "I can't *wait* to brag about this."

"Mother!" Cedrella sounded more amused than anything else.

"Pish, dear. It's a mother's right to brag when her daughter makes such a strong match." Her mother said.

"Indeed it is." Septimus' mother agreed.

Septimus and Cedrella shared an amused glance before following everyone out of the runic circle and heading for the party.


	13. Unholy Alliance, Part 4

Unholy Alliance Part 4

June - December 1939

Septimus and Cedrella's gift from Sirius Black had been a small cottage and the land it sat on. Well, small by Black standards, which meant it had six bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, parlor and a room for a library/office. It was quite a nice place and would probably seem crowded once there were children or relatives about, but in the meantime Septimus felt like he and Cedrella were a pair of gobstones in an empty trunk. Not that either of them really noticed that effect for the first week. They'd been far too busy getting intimately acquainted with each other.

They did eventually start talking over the future. Though that had to wait until the first blush of their ardor had faded and they were capable of going more than a few minutes at a stretch without ending up making love.

"I'd love to drag the family name out of the mud." Septimus said. "But I've no idea where to even start."

Cedrella smiled at him. "That'll be where I come in, Septimus. You know I've been tailing Sirius for years now. I know nearly as much about the political scene as he does at this point."

Septimus eyed her for a moment, and then grinned. "Have a plan, do you?"

He wasn't an idiot. Faced with the realization that she had a plan, he knew she hadn't come up with said plan since they married. Slytherins in general and Cedrella in particular didn't work that way. At least, the 'good' ones didn't. They took a long view, plotted and planned and schemed far in advance and at least tried to take as many variables into account as they could. He rather suspected that she'd had something in mind regarding him since they'd started meeting up every day. It made sense of her altering her pattern, which had baffled him at the time.

If he'd figured out that she was planning something regarding him even a year ago, he'dve been ... upset. At this point, he knew her well enough to know that she truly loved him, whatever she was up to wasn't bad, and that she wasn't using him for her own aims. Well, at least not in a bad way. She was Slytherin, after all. Being ambitious came with the territory, and women had little power where it 'counted'. If she couldn't manage to make a name for herself in the political arena thanks to male egos, being the real power behind an up-and-coming Lord wasn't a bad second option.

"Something of the sort." Cedrella admitted. "You've actually already done a good bit of the preliminary work. You're widely considered to be commonsensible, hardworking, honorable, and very personable. About the only person that speaks ill of you is Abraxas, and we both know why, in that case. Without that base already in place, the job would be a lot harder."

"So … what do we do from here?" Septimus wanted to know.

"We work on the financial end of things. That's where the bulk of your family's problems come from. If you're seen to be investing and spending wisely, that'll be the final cornerstone to getting people to listen when you talk rather than dismissing or ignoring you because they don't want to risk siding with someone with a bad reputation." Cedrella advised. "Again, you have already started some repair work there – that nest egg in your vault speaks well to your ability to save money. You've also never once gambled or bought some painfully expensive but useless trinket. People wouldn't know about the savings, but they'd have noticed the lack of gambling and buying things indiscriminately. On the investment end of things, we can use a portion of my dowry as investment capital, and work from there."

Septimus nodded. "Something fairly low-risk at first." He said. It was both the smartest thing, and what he was comfortable mucking with. "Maybe speak with the goblins?" He asked.

While wizards let goblins guard their money, and the goblins kept track of what businesses were doing well etc, it was the very rare pureblood wizard who would actually confer with the goblins and heed their advice before investing in a business venture, much less give a goblin full control to invest as they pleased. That had always seemed somewhat counterintuitive to Septimus, since the goblins would know where the best profits were to be had.

Cedrella made a bit of a face, but then sighed. "Probably the wisest course." She reluctantly agreed. "Given that we don't have much to work with, and a loss would both wipe us out and ruin our chances of pulling the family name out of the mud, as you put it." She took a deep breath. "I also think we should put off having children, at least for a little while. We need a better base under us before then."

Septimus opened his mouth to argue almost instantly. But then his brain caught up with him and he forced himself to think about the idea reasonably, and he clamped his mouth shut against the temptation to blurt out an immediate negative.

Right now, his salary was enough for them to live on without dipping into Cedrella's dowry. The expenses involved in a pregnancy and raising a child would force them into using Cedrella's dowry to close the gap between his income and their expenses. So they could either wait, using Cedrella's dowry to get them in a better position financially, or spend it on kids now, with no guarantee that it would be enough when all was said and done.

Put like that, there wasn't really much of a choice. He sighed. "You have a point. If at all possible, having enough money coming in to cover everyday expenses and have some left over to put towards Hogwarts tuition would be best. I know my parents scrambled to make ends meet from time to time when I was growing up. I don't want that worry for our kids."

Cedrella smiled and patted his arm. "I know that had to be a bit difficult to decide." She admitted.

"It was, but really, it's the best thing." Septimus said on a sigh.

Thanks to their finances, they were one of those couples exempt from not appearing in public at all. Septimus returned to work the day after their talk. Once their period of solitude was over, they both headed straight for the bank.

The junior teller they spoke to first was understandably surprised to have a pureblood couple seeking advice on investments. He got over it pretty fast however and immediately escorted them to speak with a more senior bank official in his office.

"So. You wish to invest." Zartang said.

He looked much like every goblin Septimus had ever met, save for the fact he had blue eyes. Septimus half wondered if maybe Zartang was related to Professor Flitwick. Not that he was going to ask.

"Yes." Septimus said. "We would rather something guaranteed to return as much as possible for what we invest, given our currently limited capital. As goblins manage all the finances of the wizarding world, it follows you would know where the most profit is to be had. To ignore such knowledge is foolhardy."

Zartang gave them a fangy smile. "You have more wisdom than most of your peers, Mr. Weasley. Yes, I can help you invest wisely."

Septimus smiled in return. "I believe the standard fee for such matters is one percent of the proceeds?" He asked.

He'd done extensive research before coming here, both so he knew what to expect and to make as good an impression as possible. Turned out, not wasting time with frivolous small talk was a sign of respect, among other things that were quite different from how wizards did things.

"Yes." Zartang said.

"Hmm. Double the money we invest each month, and I'll raise it a tenth of a percent per month up to three percent." Septimus offered. "Do well enough to get it to three percent within three years ... " It would actually take just under two years if the goblin was as good as Septimus hoped, but Septimus had added time to account for possible problems. "And not only will it stay there, but you will become the goblin in charge of all Weasley vaults and monies when I become Head of House. Until that time, you'll be in sole charge of our personal vaults."

That sort of incentive ought to have the goblin working all hours of the day and night to increase the money Septimus would be investing. From what Septimus had read, being an Account Manager was a much-prized position. Being an Account Manager who was allowed to invest at their discretion *and* getting a larger share of the proceeds was the sort of thing goblins salivated over.

Zartang's grin widened. "You have a deal, human." He said. A wave of one long-fingered hand conjured a contract. Septimus read it over to make sure that there were no hidden clauses, then signed it.

That done, they left the bank. Cedrella eyed Septimus. "Three percent, Septimus?"

"Think of it as insurance." Septimus said. "Goblins always want more gold. Earning three percent of whatever he manages to bring in for us via investments will ensure that he pays very close attention to our investments. We'll be bringing in more per investment than any other clients he might be working with unless they're investing ridiculous sums of money. It also earns us some serious good will, being willing to go above the minimums set in the last Treaty. You know as well as I do that purebloods don't. And I don't think many muggleborns think of it. They're used to how things work in Muggle banks, which don't permit that sort of haggling and incentive giving."

"Good point." Cedrella admitted after a moment. "I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right."

Zartang was as good as his word. By the time September rolled around, he'd earned two months' worth of extra percentages. Enough for Septimus to return the seed money they'd used from Cedrella's dowry with a bit of interest as thanks, and still have more to invest in September than they'd started with in July.

Unfortunately, in September, all thoughts of financial successes were driven from Septimus' mind. That muggle that had been making Septimus so uneasy invaded another country. Worse, that same week, Gellert Grindelwald and a large contingent of followers marched on several small muggle villages.

The simultaneous nature of the attacks rang alarm bells for Septimus. Alarm bells he largely forgot about, because Europe promptly went insane. In the next few months, even from the slight remove of England, it was incredibly difficult to make sense of much of anything that was going on. Armies were everywhere, alliances were struck, both wizard and muggle, and more than one battlefield had members of both communities present right from the get-go.

What made him want to beat his head against a brick wall was that despite everything going on, the Ministry was still very firmly of the belief that it was of no matter to them. It was all happening in Europe, not here, so there was nothing to worry about. No one would DARE attack the UK, much less the magical portion thereof.

Septimus wasn't the only one who openly scoffed at that. Charlus and Harfang were of equal mind with him. It was something they talked about with increasing frequency as the year waned and the fighting increased.

"It's going to come here sooner or later." Harfang predicted just before Yule, when the Marauders got together on the weekend. "The muggles declared war on that German within days of him attacking Poland. The magical European communities did the same to Grindelwald two weeks ago."

"And every available Hit Wizard and Auror on the continent is already on the warpath, with half of their Obliviators alongside, trying to keep the muggles from noticing what's going on." Charlus said. "What bothers me is that it's clear to anyone paying attention that that muggle and Grindelwald are somehow in cahoots, despite there not being any clear communication trail yet. But no one seems to realize it. Or care, for that matter."

"The ruddy bastard is going to end up exposing the wizarding world to the muggles if he's not stopped." Septimus agreed. "You'd think the Ministry would care about that at least."

"Them caring about that would require that they be able to think that far." Harfang pointed out with a disgusted snort. "Most of them can't think beyond their next bribe."

"Point." Septimus said, then shook his head. "Let's just hope that things are salvageable when they finally get their heads out of their asses."


	14. Going To War

Going To War

1940

Bit by bit, month by month, Septimus and Cedrella's financial situation improved. Zartang, as Septimus had predicted, worked his tail off to ensure that their investments brought in the most profit possible in the shortest amount of time … with as little risk as could be managed. It would be a long time before they approached even the lower end of the 'usual' pureblood level of wealth, but they were making good progress towards that goal for so early in the game.

Over that same time, the situation in Europe continued to devolve. Hitler and Grindelwald were smashing their way through everything in their paths. Hitler had invaded and defeated what seemed like half of Muggle Europe and Grindlewald had done much the same to Wizard Europe. People, both wizard and non, were dying in droves. There were days when it was all Septimus could do to restrain himself from heading over there and trying to help, consequences be damned.

Then a day came when he didn't have to fight that urge so much. Because Hitler started bombing England cities. Especially London. And more than one of the bombs got entirely too close to the Ministry and Diagon Alley for anyone's comfort. That alone had been enough to bestir the Ministry. Then one of the bombs went off directly over the Ministry and it was discovered that some or all of the bombs had a magical component. That bomb hit the Ministry wards with a Siege Engine spell. Worse, it wasn't the only such bomb, as several wizarding homes and St. Mungo's took direct hits.

The Ministry, so long willing to ignore the problem in Europe, abruptly shook off its unconcern and started howling about something needing to be done to stop the madness. Incontrovertible proof of a magical conspiring with a muggle to destroy magical enclaves? Such must be stopped, and the muggles in the know killed or obliviated. Septimus wasn't the only one to think there was more of an emphasis on killing the muggles than simply obliviating them.

Half the existing Auror corps was sent out to protect the UK enclaves, though what good they'd do against bombs falling from the sky, Septimus couldn't figure. Rigging and reinforcing wards wasn't what Aurors *did*. They all knew how to break wards down, and to cast anti-apparation and anti-portkey wards, but only a few had the knowledge and ability to cast wards that could stand up to a Siege Engine. The Ministry would have been far better served sending out ward smiths, but them doing the wrong thing in order to look good was pretty much par for the course.

The rest of the Aurors, and to Septimus' ill-disguised relief that included the Marauders, were to be sent to Europe to provide more firepower. They were given two weeks to make any arrangements needed before they headed out. Septimus was not at all surprised when Cedrella and Callidora insisted on going with them. They even had a logical reason for it.

"I am quite sure that a great many Dark spells will be being thrown about." Callidora said when everyone met up to talk about it. "Cedrella and I both have a lot of knowledge of those spells, and how to counter them, where counters exist. And what we don't know, we can quickly discover through Sirius. But we'd need to *be* there to correctly identify the spells or catalogue the effects before we ask for information."

And, it went without saying, neither woman was anywhere near all right with sending their husbands into a war zone without that sort of assistance. Nor were their husbands stupid enough to try to force the issue. Septimus for one knew damn well that Cedrella would just leave after he had, and track him down. The end result of that would be exceedingly painful. For him. And he was pretty sure that Callidora would do exactly the same to Harfang.

Charlus dug up a tent for them to use. It was fairly small and unremarkable on the outside. It could pass for a Muggle tent, which could only help if they found themselves working with muggles. Even if they didn't, having a small, unremarkable tent would make them less of a target than some of the utterly ridiculous tents wizards came up with. The inside, however, had space enough for the two couples and Charlus to live without problems.

Harfang, Callidora and Cedrella spent the better part those two weeks prior to their departure cooking up huge vats of potions that were then carefully bottled. Harfang then crafted belts for them to wear that would hold a number of vials of potions, the vast majority of them meant for battlefield healing, though a few held poisons and the like to use if opportunity presented itself.

While those three were busy, Charlus and Septimus took care of the rest: the shopping and packing needed to supply them while they were abroad. Spare wands from the Weasley, Longbottom, and Potter vaults were brought out and tested by everyone. The wands that responded to one of the party were carefully labeled: Which family they had come from, who the wand responded to, and a number that indicated how strongly. This way, if someone lost or broke their primary wand, they'd have multiple backups available.

Further raiding of the Potter and Longbottom vaults (the Weasley vault had long since been stripped of such valuable items) produced sets of armor for everyone, as well as a number of viable backup weapons. With the number of knives and other small, easily concealed sharp implements Callidora and Cedrella snapped up, he truly pitied anyone stupid enough to attack them under the assumption that a female made an easier target. He knew for a fact they'd both appealed to Sirius and been permitted to remove who-knew-what from the Black vaults for their use. Unfortunately, much of the Black family items were either Dark or be spelled to only be useable by full-blooded Blacks to prevent spouses and more distant relations from making off with Black possessions. As a result they couldn't use much of anything from that source.

Clothing for both winter and summer was packed in plenty, as was a large supply of food. One of the Potter elves, Jinx, volunteered to go with them to cook and clean. The clothing had necessitated some shopping as while everyone had plenty of clothing, none of it was any good for sustained travel or fighting in a war zone, not even their Auror robes, since wearing bright red on a battlefield was a really, really dumb idea. They took care with their food supplies as well, concentrating more on practicality than indulgence.

Once they had everything ready, the five of them reported to the Ministry and were immediately portkeyed to the French Ministry. From there, once they'd checked in and gotten their assignments, they portkeyed to one of the training camps where they would meet the rest of their group and have their fighting capabilities assessed so the Magical Europe Generals would know how best to use them. They joined a group of about twenty other men and women, only two of whom Septimus recognized from the UK.

They were greeted by a grizzled, scarred man who looked to be in his fifties or sixties and was dressed in a military uniform. Septimus strongly suspected the man was a Muggle. There was another man with him who looked all of twenty and was dressed in a dueling robe and armor.

"Right." The grizzled man said. "M'names Georg. I'm in charge of teaching you lot about the stuff you're going to run into out there that you might not be familiar with. Which of you lot know what a gun is?"

All three Marauders raised their hands, as did Cedrella. Septimus had learned about guns in his forays into the muggle village as a kid, and the other two Marauders had learned about them over the summers after Hogwarts started. Cedrella of course had learned about them from Muggle Studies, and Septimus had filled her in on a few of the changes the class hadn't known about. About half of the rest of their group also indicated they knew what a gun was.

"And of you lot that know what one is … how many've seen one?" Only one or two hands were dropped, none in the Marauders group. "And of you lot, how many have actually fired one?"

Every hand but those of the three Marauders went down. Even they had only a few lessons in that art, having wanted to know what to do with a gun if they had to deal with it in the execution of their duties. Guns were tightly controlled in the UK, but they did exist and were occasionally used, and not all Auror cases stayed solely in the wizarding world. The elderly muggle they'd gone to in the village near Septimus' parent's house had insisted on teaching them not just how to handle a gun safely, but to fire it, since he was under the assumption that they were muggles themselves.

"Right." Georg said. "At least now I know what I'm working with. You three, I'll talk to later. I want to see how good you are." He said, pointing to the three men before returning his attention to the rest. "Everyone, come with me."

They were led to a tent, which held a myriad of guns and other muggle implements. Septimus recognized a few, but most he didn't.

Georg proceeded to give everyone a basic rundown on guns, grenades, and other muggle weapons they might come across. He told them which to avoid touching at all cost (mostly mines), and how to safely handle the rest.

"I'll be teaching you lot how to shoot." Georg informed them. "I know you've got your wands, but if you ever don't, but have a gun handy, you'll thank me for it."

"On the other end of things." The young man who'd been partnered with Georg spoke up for the first time. "I will be assessing your magical abilities, so that we can assign you to where you'll do the most good. I have notes on who is used to working in a particular group – do not worry that you will be forced to split up. Such partnerships will be kept intact."

That was a relief to Septimus. He hadn't been too worried they'd be split up, but it had been a possibility. There had been stupider decisions made in the past, to be sure.

After that, it was time for a meal, and then they reconvened, this time for their magical evaluation. This, Septimus watched with great interest, as most of their group was not from the UK, and might therefore know and use spells unfamiliar to him. It also behooved him to know who the weak links in the group were.

Surprisingly, despite their general lack of knowledge of muggle weaponry, the group was otherwise quite solid and capable. A pair from Switzerland that Septimus initially thought were fraternal twins but were actually (somewhat creepily, given their near-identical looks) a married couple were the real standouts of the group. Like the Marauders, it was clear the pair had worked together extensively, and knew each other inside and out, allowing them to flow around each other seamlessly in a fight. They also had quite an arsenal of spells Septimus had never seen before at their disposal.

Karl, the wizard doing the evaluations, was nearly as surprised by the Marauder triad as the Aurors initially had been, but he hadn't been able to argue with the results. With the vast majority of magical fights taking place either between single opponents, mass free-for-alls, or between duos, most defensive measures had been developed to deal with single or paired opponents. The third leg of the Marauders was a loose end that most defensive stratagems couldn't immediately account for. It gave the Marauders an advantage, at least in the initial minutes of any confrontation. Sooner or later, their opponents would manage to compensate, but in the meantime, the Marauders weren't shy about taking ruthless advantage of the resultant initial confusion.

Needless to say, everyone went to bed exhausted that night. The next day, the Marauders were pulled aside by Georg, who took them to the firing range and had them show him what they knew. Given it wasn't much, that didn't take long. At the end, Georg nodded.

"All right. Not enough to pass you out of the class, so to speak, but you're a step up from the rest. I want you three to start practicing every day with one of these. Make sure one of us muggles is with you until you're cleared to practice on your own. The others will start joining you on the range as they pass the 'safe handling' portion of the course. You lot still have to attend that, by the way. Modern guns handle a little differently than old hunting rifles."

None of them were about to argue with that.


	15. War

War

A/N: Warning, this chapter contains mentions of death, violence, and mild gore.

(_)(_)(_)

1940 – 1945

For the rest of his life, Septimus was only ever able to recall bits and flashes of the years of the war. Cedrella had a somewhat more coherent memory of those days, but not too terribly much so. Harfang had the clearest memory of those years, but Septimus didn't find that out for well over two decades, as the three Marauders rarely rehashed the war years. Some of the memories they had of those days were good and many of them were bad. A few memories were outright horrifying.

(_)(_)(_)

Among the good memories was the time spent on the firing range in the early days with Harfang, Charlus and the other wizards. They spent nearly as much time laughing and playfully taunting each other for their poor aim as actually shooting. Septimus also rather fondly remembered sitting side-by-side with them as they learned to deal with grenades and other muggle weapons.

He definitely remembered smirking at the other wizards who mocked Cedrella and Callidora when the women joined them for the hand-to-hand and melee weapons practice. He remembered being torn between fierce pride and uproarious laughter as he watched the two women trounce everyone save the expert that had been brought in to teach them with remarkably little effort. Mostly by dint of simply being women and the men's reluctance to attack them. He remembered his amusement at the womens' total disgust and disdain at being treated like delicate, helpless flowers and their pleasure at having the expert treat them as being dangerous opponents after watching them trounce the other men.

He remembered gathering in the main mess tent in the evenings to learn German from Karl and Georg, refugees from their own country. He remembered Karl and Georg laughing themselves sick more than once at how some of the words got mangled, and refusing to tell them what they'd actually said versus what they'd meant to say, even as the two men corrected their pronunciation.

He also had fleeting memories of many of the evenings they spent learning a stunning variety of spells from the various wizards in the group. He remembered teaching them the finer points of the spells he knew in exchange, and watching Cedrella and Callidora do the same. He remembered realizing, on one particular evening, that the women had been accepted by their group as equals and trustworthy fighters, and trying not to hurt his face for grinning so hard.

(_)(_)(_)

Unfortunately, the bad memories far outweighed the good ones. He remembered one of a number of running firefights between their group and a unit of Grindelwald's followers in a small rural village in particular, though he's not sure why, as it hadn't resulted in horrific injuries on their side. He remembered ducking and swerving away from spells as the raced around and through the buildings without having time or opportunity to throw up a shield. He remembered managing to walk away from the fight with everyone alive and well, but leaving fire and devastation in their wake … and a burning funeral pyre of the dead bodies of their opponents.

(_)(_)(_)

One of the worst things he remembered was of being ambushed by a contingent of muggles and wizards on their way back to camp. He remembered the horror of realizing in the midst of fighting for their lives that the contingent had come from the direction of the camp. Harfang must have realized it at more or less the same time, as they had promptly gone into overdrive, mercilessly slashing, hexing, and punching their way through the ranks of the enemy in an near-frenzy. It had taken Charlus and the others a moment to realize why he and Harfang had gotten so brutal, but the second they had, they had redoubled their own efforts in the fight to get back to the camp, hoping against hope it wasn't too late.

He remembered the horrified, agonized grief he'd felt at finding the camp razed to the ground and fully half their support staff lying dead in the snow. Several of them had been hexed so badly they were almost unrecognizable. The rest had been shot repeatedly and/or blown to pieces. He remembered the sorrow that hit when he realized that Georg was among the dead, one hand still clinging to a gun even in death mute testament to his not having gone down without a fight. Worse, he remembered the complete terror and blinding rage that consumed him when he realized Cedrella and Callidora weren't among the dead - and the contingent they'd slaughtered hadn't had either woman in their custody.

He remembered the desperate, determined hunt to retrieve Cedrella, Callidora and the rest of their company before something truly horrifying happened to them. He remembered marching for days without sleep, using every trick at their disposal to find some scrap of evidence as to where they'd been taken.

He remembered damn near falling to his knees in relief when they finally found Cedrella, Callidora, and the pitiful remnants of their support staff three days later and twenty miles away from the burned-out remnants of their camp. The group had clearly somehow escaped their captors, as all of them sported bruises and cuts, only Cedrella and Callidora seemed to still have a wand, while the rest were making do with what looked like the two womens' cache of small, sharp weapons and a handful of stolen German guns. They'd been backed against a rocky promontory, Callidora and Cedrella at the front, faces fierce and grimly determined as they hexed everything in sight.

He remembered Jinx, who had probably been the cause of the group's escape, standing between the two women. He'd had his hands up, projecting a shield for their company to shelter behind, face twisted in a feral snarl as he fought in the group's defense. Septimus remembered the blood that had been pouring from a gash near Jinx's temple that Jinx was completely ignoring, mute testament to his determination to protect their group.

He remembered realizing that if it hadn't been for Jinx, the group would have been slaughtered. Not even Cedrella and Callidora, for all their skill with magic, could have fought off such a large group without a lot of help.

He remembered the short, brutal, bloody and deadly fight as he and the others had come up behind the kidnappers. He knew for a fact that he'd taken absolutely no mercy on any of that lot. He was equally sure that Harfang had been as unforgiving.

He remembered curling around Cedrella that night after it was all over. Lying there under the stars with his face buried in the crook of her neck (and her face buried in the crook of his) and not being able to tell which of them was shaking – or crying – harder. He remembered that both of them had known Harfang was mere feet away doing the same with Callidora. And he remembered that the only reason any of the four of them were able to relax was Jinx standing between them, vigilantly watchful, sporting a bandage on his head but unwilling to rest, even when Charlus had tried to order him to.

He remembered Jinx's teary-eyed pleasure over the next month at becoming the group mascot in the wake of the attack, and the resultant little gifts and friendly attention from everyone. He remembered the amusement he'd felt when, after they'd managed to resupply themselves, Jinx demanded that he take over the cooking and cleaning duties for their entire company.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered the frustration of standing over an injured Harfang and being unable to help him. He'd been back to back with Charlus as they concentrated on fending off their attackers while Harfang patched himself back together. The incoming fire had been so heavy that diverting his attention would have meant exposing himself and Charlus to serious injury as well.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered being the one Charlus and Harfang were standing over, defending him and unable to help. He remembered being half-blind with pain and barely able to breathe as he fumbled at his belt for potions. He'd been desperate to get himself patched together fast and allow them to get the hell out of there. He also remembered managing a scrap of gratitude that he'd not been hit by a Dark spell, merely a rather painful regular one.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered the day he'd stood alone over both Harfang and a gravely, possibly mortally injured Charlus. His magic had been singing in his veins, burning like fire as it responded to his demands as he fought with everything he had to defend the men he considered brothers. He remembered having a completely time-inappropriate realization that the spells were coming faster and easier than they ever had. Which had immediately been followed by the equally time-inappropriate thought that there might be something to the old saw about blackthorn wands only truly coming into their own after their owners faced great adversity.

He remembered the blinding relief when he realized that Charlus, while gravely wounded and in need of better healing than was available in the field and a long recovery time, would live to tell the tale. Things got very fuzzy after that as the exhaustion had set in once Charlus had been safely evacuated to England for further treatment. That was followed by a fleeting memory of everyone scrambling towards him as he succumbed to magical exhaustion.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered himself and Harfang laughing themselves sick months later after getting a letter from Charlus wherein Charlus mentioned meeting another of the Black daughters - Dorea. The way Charlus had gone on about her, it had been pretty obvious to the two of them that Charlus was falling for her ... and didn't yet realize that he was.

He remembered returning briefly to England for Charlus' wedding celebration two months after getting that letter, and the happiness of knowing Charlus had finally found his match. He remembered meeting Dorea for the first time and realizing she was practically a clone of Cedrella and Callidora in temperament and outlook. He also remembered himself and Harfang teasing Charlus unmercifully about 'finally joining the club' and having his hair hexed green for a week by Dorea in retribution.

He remembered Charlus returning to the front a month later, still a little pale, on the thin side and limping but determined to not leave Septimus and Harfang in the lurch … and bringing Dorea with him. He remembered the amused reactions of the rest of their group when they realized that Dorea was a cousin of Cedrella and Callidora's, and their near-instantaneous acceptance and inclusion of her as a member of their group of fighters.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered them accidentally stumbling across one of Grindelwald's strongholds, and their horrified realization that it held an army of inferi. He remembered the desperate scramble to contain that army and burn the stronghold to the ground with those foul creatures in it.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered watching the women tend the injured after battles, their hands kind and words gentle as they did everything in their power to heal the group's various hurts. And he remembered holding Cedrella tight and letting her cry on more than one occasion when, after a long battle to prevent it, she'd had one of their number die of their wounds under her care.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered the utter horror everyone felt when they stumbled across a huge fenced facility filled with people, muggles all. People who were almost skeletally thin, with haunted, dead eyes and most of them bearing grievous injuries. Worse, all of them bore numbers that had been engraved on their arms like they were cattle. He remembered most of the magicals not quite comprehending the wheres and whyfores of this horrible place until Karl, his voice strained and horrified, explained it to them.

He remembered wanting to find Hitler and blast him to atoms for that atrocity. Which had been followed by the grim, horrifying realization that this … this was something that could happen in their own world, if the extremist purebloods got their way. Harfang, Charlus and their wives hadn't been far behind him in the realization. Their wives might even have got there before he did, considering the history and reputation of the Black family. He remembered the grim, solemn vow the six of them had made to never, ever allow that to happen, whatever it took.

He remembered their group methodically tearing the place apart, killing every guard regardless of attempts to surrender. He remembered them making damn sure that the place was razed to the ground, incapable of being used for the same purpose ever again - and his somewhat heartbroken respect when most of the ex-captives lent as much of a helping hand as their poor condition permitted. He remembered gently shepherding the surviving captives to safety at one of the magical enclaves where the worst of the physical damage could be mitigated before they were obliviated of any knowledge of magic, and taken far from war-torn Europe where they'd hopefully be safe among their own kind.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered the jubilant celebration when Hitler was finally taken down. Their company had danced through the night, toasting the victory. He remembered the equally jubilant celebration less than a month later when word came that Grindelwald was in custody, his army broken.

He remembered sitting down and talking to their wives about their options, and agreeing to stay on for a month or two, to help track down and shut down what they could of Grindelwald and Hitler's followers, supply lines, and remaining bases. Then talking to the rest of their group and being more than a little amused at everyone's reluctance to part ways right away, and their eager willingness to help with the final stages of the war effort.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered their dismayed horror as they found base after base, evidence of a long-term, well-thought-out plan on the part of both dictators. He remembered having to dismantle the things, their knowledge of ward-breaking getting a workout the likes of which they'd not yet seen at Grindelwald's bases, as the man had clearly planned for the possibility of his bases being found by the enemy. Hitler's bases had been a lot easier to deal with, in part because there were no magical booby traps, and in part because the man had become seriously unhinged in the latter days of the war and his planning had suffered for it, which showed in the state of the bases' defenses.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered the white-faced horror the magical contingent had felt when word had come about the special bombs dropped on two Japanese cities. He remembered sharing a grim, horrified look with the other magicals, not quite able to squash the thought of such a thing being dropped on a magical enclave. He remembered a more than slightly sarcastic thought about the pureblood extremists thinking it was a good idea to antagonize people who were capable of such large-scale devastation.

(_)(_)(_)

He remembered the relief and joy of finally returning home in the last days on 1945. All of them bore scars, both physical and mental, but they were relatively whole and ready to go on with their lives.

He remembered his and Cedrella's amusement when Jinx showed up two days after they'd returned to The Den, insisting on popping in on them once a month, to check and make sure they were in good health and not in need of assistance. He remembered talking to Charlus shortly afterward, and Charlus' amused permission for Jinx to do so. Charlus had simply being grateful that Jinx was only insisting on keeping an eye on the Marauders, and not the entire company, which was now spread all over Europe with the end of the war an the dissolution of their group.


	16. Regaining Normalcy

Regaining Normalcy

1945 – 1946

The day after their amusing talk with Charlus, Septimus and Cedrella sat down to talk things over.

"It'll take us a few days to unpack, clean and resupply the house." Septimus said. "And I want to check in with Zartang, see how our finances are."

Cedrella nodded. "Agreed. We also need to talk to Sirius and your father, see how things have been going in the Wizengamot, and what else has happened that we didn't learn from letters home. Then we need to figure out how to wriggle into that place."

"Harfang and Charlus will probably be happy to help us there." Septimus pointed out. "It ought to help considerably."

Cedrella nodded agreement. "Very much so."

Cedrella started on cleaning the house while Septimus got their trunk unpacked. In doing so, he ran across a few things belonging to the other Marauders that had gotten mixed in with their things accidentally. He had little doubt the others would be running across a similar issue as they unpacked. He piled those items on the couch closest to the fireplace they used for flooing so they wouldn't be forgotten the next time either they went to the other Marauders' homes or the other Marauders came here. Once everything was unpacked, Septimus hunted Cedrella down and helped her finish cleaning the house.

Thankfully, with magic, it didn't take long to clean. The house was mostly dusty and musty from being shut up for four years, rather than anything more dire, and that was easily taken care of. Once that was done, they headed out to resupply the house. Mostly, they needed food, but there were a few other things they needed as well. The house was completely bare of any food other than travel rations, as they'd known they would be gone for a long time and had emptied everything out when they'd first left for Europe. They'd been living on the travel rations the last few days rather than brave the Alley when they were tired and time-lagged. Their first stop was Gringotts, as they had nowhere near enough money on hand to buy all the food they'd need.

Zartang was pleased to see them when they were admitted to his office. "You will be delighted to know that your wealth has increased nearly one hundred fold in your absence." He informed them, looking thoroughly smug.

"A hundred fold?" Septimus echoed. He'd never expected it this soon when they'd first agreed to the deal that had resulted in Zartang being their account manager. He'd thought it would take another three or four years at least. "If I'm doing the math right, that puts us at the goal we'd set when we started."

In other words, they now had enough money in their vault to afford the expenses involved in having a child, including Hogwarts tuition, with enough to spare to handle unexpected expenses.

Zartang nodded and handed over their account statement. The picture it painted, when Septimus looked it over, was quite rosy compared to what he was used to growing up. It wasn't enough to have the newest and best of everything their heart desired. That said, their child would not be forced to use second-hand items when it came to the basic necessities of life and school equipment, with the exception of a broom. If their account continued to grow the way it had been, by the time their child was old enough to need or want a broom, they'd actually be able to afford a new one.

Septimus shared a pleased look with Cedrella, and was hard put to keep from laughing at the anticipatory gleam in Cedrella's eye. Yeah … it was going to be *good* to be a Weasley for a while.

"This is excellent, Zartang. I hadn't expected to reach this point for another few years yet." Septimus said.

Zartang looked pleased, and they adjourned to the vault itself to withdraw enough money to restock their pantry.

Once they'd returned home from their shopping trip and stored everything in the pantry, Septimus floo-called his father. Gaius was only too pleased to have the pair over for dinner.

"Just know you're liable to be subjected to an inspection, son. Your mother's fretted about you something fierce while you were over there, and she's going to want an accounting of every bruise." Gaius told him.

Septimus laughed. "That does sound like her." He agreed, then sobered. "Though she should be relieved to discover I made it out without too much damage. Charlus got the worst of it, really. He came perilously close to not coming back that one time." He grimaced at that less-than-pleasant memory.

When Septimus and Cedrella arrived at Weasley Cottage, they found themselves ambushed by Septimus' brothers and in the case of Victor, his wife and child. Septimus rolled his eyes at his father. Cedrella just smiled and offered no help whatever, the evil wench.

"A family reunion? Really dad?" He asked.

Gaius just looked smug while Septimus got tackled. For once, it wasn't one of his brothers doing it … it was his mother. She clung to him for long moments before she finally pulled back and gave him a rather watery attempt at a glare.

"I'm so glad you made it home safe." She said, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. "Both of you. I've worried nonstop."

"We're all right. I'll admit to a few more scars than I started with, but nothing debilitating." Septimus said, patting his mother on the back when she finally let go of him.

Cedrella smiled again and said. "Well, I wasn't about to let Septimus die on my watch, and my sister felt much the same about Harfang, so we made sure they made it back in one piece. Dorea helped immensely with Charlus once those two were married."

Only when she returned to Gaius' side did his brothers tackle him. Cedrella saw it coming and stepped out of the way. Septimus found himself having to actively restrain a far more violent response than he had once employed in such free-for-alls. Fortunately, Victor seemed to notice and called the other two off before something unfortunate happened by accident.

"So. Gossip." Cedrella said, to cover the slightly awkward moment. "Because I know you guys didn't tell us everything."

The elder Weasleys and Septimus' brothers were only too happy to fill them in, and they all settled in the parlor for a long talk. They spent the rest of the evening catching Septimus and Cedrella up on all the things they'd missed out on. Who'd married who, who had kids, NEWT grades in Bilius' case, as he'd graduated four years ago, after they'd gone to Europe. All those sorts of things that either had been left out of letters or had been forgotten by Septimus and Cedrella in their concentration on surviving the war.

The biggest nugget of gossip seemed to be Dumbledore. According to Gaius, Dumbledore had taken off for Europe the moment the school year had ended, and spent the summer hunting Grindelwald down. Largely solo, which had been cause for a lot of comment at the time. It seemed to have only been sheer chance that their penultimate battle had witnesses from both sides of the war.

"The witnesses to their battle say it was incredible to watch. And apparently, a phoenix came to Dumbledore's aid, can you imagine that? Naturally, he's something of the hero of the hour. Who knows how long things would have gone on if he hadn't managed to defeat Grindelwald. There's even rumors that the reason that muggle fell when he did was because Grindlewald was either too busy evading Dumbledore or had already fallen to him, and couldn't help the guy."

Mentally, Septimus grimaced. He had not forgotten his dislike for how Dumbledore had handled Charlus making bullies accountable for their actions as best he could as a prefect. He also strongly suspected that Dumbledore was the reason that Charlus hadn't become Head Boy. Charlus had certainly had the scholastic marks to warrant the accolade. Moreso than the boy who had gotten the nod. The Marauders might have been expecting the snub, but it had still bothered Charlus at the time.

"Weird things have been happening at Hogwarts, too." Bilius said. "There was this kid … Slytherin, not a bully, but … something about him gave me the creeps, big time. Even as a third year, which is what he was when I graduated, he was way, way too popular and influential in that House. Especially since he wasn't a pureblood."

Septimus cocked an eyebrow. "A Muggleborn? In that House?"

"Not sure he was Muggleborn, really. Halfblood, maybe." Bilius said. "I just know Riddle isn't a pureblood name. Anyway, something about the kid worried me. And I heard, a couple years after I graduated, that someone was actually *killed* in the school. Oddly, not a lot of people seem to know anything about it. It's like it got hushed up or something. I've heard rumors of someone getting expelled, but no one seems to have a name to go with it. And given how things were going in school by the time I left, I'd be willing to bet real money that the person that got expelled isn't the real perpetrator."

"You are unfortunately probably not wrong about that." Septimus said on a sigh. "I know that there was a strong tendency to ignore the real troublemakers in the school when I was there. It wouldn't take much for it to go from there to accusing the wrong people of wrongdoing. People who don't have the sort of power and influence inherent with being a scion of a pureblood family."

They returned home fairly late in the evening after the brief family get-together. The next morning, they got floo calls from Harfang and Charlus both shortly after breakfast, wanting to meet up.

They congregated at The Den, which, while smaller and less impressive than the Longbottom and Potter homes, was sufficient to their needs. Septimus' assumption that items had gotten mixed up by all three couples was born out when Harfang and Charlus appeared with several items in hand. Septimus was amused to note that Jinx had arrived with Charlus, insistent on attending the Marauders. He disappeared into the kitchen to prepare lunch for them, much to everyone's amusement.

"Bet you he spruces up the house, too, despite it already being clean." Cedrella said.

"Not taking that bet, cousin." Dorea said on a laugh. "He fusses over all of us something fierce, doesn't he?"

They took a few moments to return items to their proper owners, and then adjourned to the couches.

"So, we've talked to Lord Longbottom, Lord Potter, and Lord Black since we returned." Harfang told them. "I'm betting you talked to Lord Weasley as well."

Septimus nodded. "We mostly got family gossip last night, though. I was going to drag the Ministry and Wizengamot nonsense out of him later."

"It's not good news, brother." Charlus said on a sigh. "The more extreme sorts have got themselves into important positions. Oh, not positions of power just yet, but ready to pounce when the existing powers leave their posts."

"Sirius is all but foaming at the mouth about Orion and Walburga." Dorea said. "Sirius has always been more neutrally aligned than anything else, but Orion and Walburga seem to be heading straight for the deep end of the extremist camp. They were apparently prime targets for the Marauders, and we all know what that means."

There were nods around the room. "Things don't look good, for fifty years or so from now, when Orion takes the Headship. Family Black is going to be in for a rough go of it unless something happens to improve matters."

"The Wizengamot was passing more and more stringent controls and laws as the war wore on … and they're showing no sign of stopping now, either." Harfang said. "Father's about to the point of slamming heads together, and he doesn't lose his temper easily."

Charlus shifted slightly in his seat, easing his weight off the leg and hip that still bothered him, legacy of his brush with death. "My father's in the same boat. He's been arguing himself hoarse in there with little to nothing to show for it."

"We need to do something … but what, I haven't a clue." Harfang admitted.

Callidora spoke up for the first time. "The best possible thing to be done, is for all of you to work on your reputations. You're war heroes to the general public. Parlaying that into a greater amount of influence and power would not be a bad idea." She told them.

"And if we worked together, formed a voting block … " Charlus said, nodding in agreement as he caught on to where Callidora was going with the idea. "We might be able to rally the other younger generation Light and Neutral families to our banner in a way our parents couldn't. I know a lot of our age mates strongly suspect us of being the Marauders, even if it's claimed they're still at large in the school. They all know when the Marauders started working, and they're not exactly stupid."

The Marauders had defended those being bullied and stood up for what was right. In more than a few cases that had meant assisting or defending fellow scions. It made those suspicious of the Marauders' identities far more inclined to ally with them.

"It would have the side benefit of being the last bit of leg-up you need, Septimus, to bring the Weasleys back into prominence. Being backed by the Potters and Longbottoms will go a very, very long way to easing everyone's minds." Harfang pointed out.

"And in a few years, when we have a power base to work with, we can talk to our respective fathers about stepping down from Headship early. With new blood working as a group in the Wizengamot, we might just be able to do something about the situation." Septimus said, agreeing with the idea. "It's a plan."


	17. Irritants, Problems, and Issues

Irritants, Problems, and Issues

Note: For the purposes of this fic, Augusta Longbottom is not Neville's grandmother, but his great-grandmother.

(_)(_)(_)

1946

The Marauders swung into gear immediately after their little conference. By the new year, the plan was already bearing some fruit. Several families with close ties to the triad were expressing interest in joining forces.

In the early weeks of 1946, they were even awarded Orders of Merlin (second class) for their actions in the war. While their reputations hadn't exactly been suffering, this did all three of them a world of good in the eyes of the general public. The problem was, they weren't the only one to get an Order of Merlin. Dumbledore got one too, First Class, for defeating Grindelwald.

Septimus wouldn't have begrudged Dumbledore the award if something about the man hadn't been sounding a quiet alarm. Septimus couldn't put his finger on what was bothering him, either – but something was. He could only hope that he simply had an overdeveloped sense of paranoia thanks to surviving the war and that there wasn't really anything to be worried about. But every time he thought of that, he remembered Dumbledore chastising Charlus for punishing troublemakers, and the alarm sounded all over again.

It was rapidly becoming clear to the Marauders that the Wizengamot was polarizing in a way it hadn't in living memory. Oh, there had always been extremists on both sides of the political divide but they had been a vocal minority. The bulk of the Wizengamot had always fallen somewhere in the middle between the two extremes.

That middle ground was slowly disappearing. More and more families were beginning to align with one or the other extremist camp. This trend had apparently begun during the war, according to the Marauders' family Heads. Worryingly, the Heads suspected that the folks taking sides were doing so under undue pressure, especially from the Dark extremists. It was more than a little disturbing to see. Even worse, thanks to the two extremes gaining supporters, the Wizengamot, which had always contentious at the best of times, at least according to their fathers, was becoming a battlefield.

After doing a considerable amount of information gathering, and quite a number of conferences between themselves to adjust and fine-tune their plans, they were ready to start. Due to a number of factors, it had been decided that Septimus would be the first to approach his father about 'retiring' early. Septimus approached his father in mid-March.

"In truth, I would not mind stepping down early, son." Gaius told him when Septimus had explained what the Marauders were up to and hoping to accomplish. "You're better suited to all that nonsense than I am, and being able to spend our twilight years together without having to deal with Wizengamot shenaniganry has its appeal for your mother and I." Gaius gave Septimus a pleased smile. "It helps that I think you can manage what I and our forbearers haven't, and bring the Weasley Family back into prominence." Then he cocked an eyebrow. "I assume Harfang and Charlus are having this discussion with Lords Potter and Longbottom?"

Septimus nodded. "I know Harfang's father is not enjoying the best health, so he might be willing to step down as Head right away. It's Lord Potter that is going to take some convincing." Lord Potter enjoyed robust health ... and was stubborn enough to dig his heels in unless approached just right.

Harfang did indeed speak to his own father, who had readily agreed to the changeover due to his ill health. Unfortunately, about a month later, before he was able to complete whatever business he'd had outstanding, Harfang's father's health took a sudden turn for the worse. A week later, he died in his sleep. His death temporarily threw a wrench into the works.

Harfang's mother, Augusta, took her husband's death very hard. Theirs had been a love match, despite the custom at the time they'd gotten married for arranged marriages. There for a few months, there was an honest concern that Augusta would follow him in death, such was her grief. As a result, Harfang refused to leave her unattended until she stabilized somewhat emotionally.

The Marauders closed ranks around Harfang and Augusta, doing their level best to support them and help them through Lord Longbottom's death. Jinx was a near-constant presence in Longbottom Manor for weeks, taking up the slack left by the grieving house-elves until they got their feet back under them.

Harfang took his place as Head of the Family the day of the funeral. All three couples dearly wished that the start of their triad coming into the Wizengamot could have happened under much better circumstances.

The one piece of good news was that Harfang taking up the Head of Family mantle put paid to the triad's Auror careers. Harfang and Septimus both were exceedingly grateful for that. Neither of them would have minded continuing their careers for quite a while longer … but Charlus simply couldn't.

During the war, Charlus had been hit by a spell that had blown a massive hole in hip and leg. He'd nearly bled to death on the field that day – would have, if the Marauders hadn't had every healing potion they were capable of brewing on hand. He'd come to within a whisker of losing the leg, as well. He'd healed quite well, given the severity of his injury. Unfortunately, he was left with a permanent limp and pain – the degree of both Harfang and Septimus were *quite* sure Charlus had underplayed during the war in order to put their minds at ease.

He'd kept up during the war, but both Harfang and Septimus had seen how much it took out of him to do so. They'd done everything in their power to ensure that he wasn't required to run, and both men had slowed their own walking paces to allow Charlus to keep pace with them more easily.

When they'd returned to England, the Auror Corps had understandably wanted them back. Harfang and Septimus had stalled and delayed as best they could, claiming a need for rest, and time to reconnect with their families while they tried to talk Charlus out of trying to continue as an Auror. Unfortunately, the Potters were well known for having a stubborn streak a mile wide. Charlus had been determined to continue as an Auror because he felt the three of them would be needed in the corps. The worst part was that he hadn't exactly been wrong about that.

Now, there really wasn't a choice in the matter. With one of their third permanently out of commission due to his duties as Head of a Family, Septimus and Charlus would have been re-routed to desk jobs until and unless they managed to compensate sufficiently for the loss of their fighting partner. After better than half a lifetime of working as a triad, it was highly unlikely they'd have been able to adapt to a more normal two-person partnership. Neither Septimus nor Charlus much fancied spending the next however long stuck behind a desk filling out paperwork. Charlus finally stopped insisting he was able for Auror work, and they told the Head Auror they wouldn't be returning.

Instead, they turned their attention and energy to bolstering Harfang. He had always been the quietest of their triad, content to let Septimus and Charlus garner the lion's share of attention. Having to step forward now and be heard presented him with a difficult challenge. Especially since neither Charlus nor Septimus were in the Wizengamot, and thus unavailable to be leaned on for support.

Charlus and Septimus spent a lot of time in the last half of the year coaching Harfang. Helping him memorize what he intended to say about whatever piece of legislation was up for voting, letting him practice the speech on them until he was comfortable with it and such things. They also helped him tailor arguments to various members of the Wizengamot that might object to legislation Harfang was in favor of, and coached him on how to stand, walk, sit so he projected an aura of confidence even when he felt nothing of the kind. By the end of December, Harfang was finally finding his feet and was able to handle more and more of the Wizengamot shenanigans without Charlus and Septimus' backup outside of the sessions.

At that point, Septimus was able to pay more attention to the various Wizengamot members with an eye towards what they were up to long-term, rather than dealing with what they were up to today that Harfang would need to deal with.

It was slightly disconcerting. He was both amused and disturbed to see Dumbledore doing much the same sort of thing the Marauders were – parlaying his popularity and influence thanks to his actions in the war into political power. Headmaster Dippet had started making noises about possibly retiring, from what Septimus had heard (third hand, so he didn't quite trust those rumors), but it was certain that Dumbledore was trying to form a voting block of his own. He was almost never seen without the phoenix he'd returned from the war with on his shoulder. Septimus had to admit it was a brilliant bit of psychological warfare. Everyone in the Wizarding world knew that phoenixes didn't associate with people who weren't Light as it was humanly possible to be. That Dumbledore now had Fawkes as a companion was drawing a lot of people to his side. It was also giving his opinions and such a lot more weight than they otherwise would have had. The net result was that Dumbledore was slowly, sneakily working his way into a position of leadership for the 'Light' camp in the Wizengamot.

Given what he knew of Dumbledore from his school days, Septimus couldn't quite help but wonder if Dumbledore had somehow managed to coerce Fawkes. It might be possible. Septimus had no idea how much truth there was in the old belief that phoenixes had to return to where their ashes were in order to go through their burning day … but if that was true, all it would take for Dumbledore to force the creature into his company would have been to stumble across the phoenix's nest and steal the ashes. Maybe keep it in his pocket to ensure the creature stayed close. It was also possible there might be other ways to coerce a phoenix. Light and extremely powerful they might be, but they weren't invulnerable.

Septimus frequently scolded himself for thinking along those lines. No, he was not a fan of Dumbledore's, but to seriously consider that the man was coercing a phoenix? That was a bit much. The man was a canny politician, that much was for certain, and a bit shady, but that was a bit of a stretch.

What was truly worrying was that Abraxas' father was emerging as the leader of the pureblood extremist set. Abraxas might be a stubborn fool (at least when it had come to Cedrella), but his father had more wits about him, and enough political savvy to be worrisome. He was also power-hungry, wanting to bring the Malfoy name into the same circle as the Blacks, Potters, and Longbottoms (among a few others).

In that, at least, he was mostly foredoomed to failure. It would be at least another hundred years – probably a lot more than that – before the Malfoys were accepted as a member of the Wizarding elite. Heck, the LeStranges, also from France, but who had emigrated to the UK quite a bit before the Malfoys had, still hadn't managed to enter that circle. And the LeStranges didn't throw money around like it would solve all their problems, which the Malfoys had a tendency to do.

Unfortunately, while the Malfoys would not be joining the elites in Abraxas' lifetime, they did enjoy a growing amount of political power that was worrying Septimus. Abraxas' father had the sort of gilded tongue that swayed people to his way of thinking with relative ease, and he was using it ruthlessly. Many of the extremist and Dark-leaning neutral families were either beginning to follow his banner or listen to what he had to say.

All in all, Septimus couldn't quite shake the mental impression that they were headed for the edge of a cliff, and if they didn't put on the brakes, they were going to end up in a world and a half of trouble. Unfortunately, he couldn't even begin to figure out how to apply those breaks. Worse, neither could Cedrella.

Septimus had talked to her extensively. While she didn't quite share his paranoia as regarded Dumbledore, she agreed completely with his assessment of the rest of the situation that was developing, and did express concern over Dumbledore's increasing popularity. Unfortunately, not even she, with all her political savvy, could figure out how to keep things from going the way they seemed to be heading.


	18. Head of the Family

Head of the Family

1947

In late January of 1947, Gaius floo-called Septimus and asked him to come over. Septimus had a feeling he knew what it was about, so he took the day off and headed over to the Cottage. His suspicions were more or less borne out when he discovered his father was in his office. The only times his father had summoned him for a talk in there - well, that room was strictly for business purposes only. There were only so many topics his father could want to discuss with him if he was wanting to talk there.

His father's office was pretty crowded, despite it having been magically expanded at some point - possibly at several points, given the length of time their family had been around and how many of them there were. There were ceiling-to-floor bookcases covering every inch of the walls, crowded with scrolls, books, and journals. The shelves immediately behind his father's desk also had sheaves of parchment scattered on top of the books in a seemingly random fashion. There was also a single cabinet situated behind the desk, between it and the shelves against the wall. The desk, an enormous monstrosity made from English Oak and one of the very few items of any worth the Weasleys had managed to hang on to, was covered in stacks of parchment, scrolls, books, quills, bottles of ink and lots of random odds and ends.

Despite the chaotic look of the room, Septimus knew from experience that his father could find anything he needed within seconds without resorting to magic. Septimus didn't pretend to understand how that was possible, and dreaded having to make sense of all that mess and organize it in a way he could work with.

"Son, I know we talked last year about me stepping down early." Gaius said after they'd greeted each other and settled in their respective seats. "And I know you boys have plans for the future, and your time together amongst the wolves." He grinned a bit at describing the Wizengamot that way. "And Harfang is in there alone at the moment. I also know you and Charlus spent most of the latter half of last year helping him find his feet in there as best you could. From what I saw of him in there, it worked."

Gaius sighed. "We both know things are getting more and more shady and difficult in there." He said. "I don't have the temperament – or the backup – to continue much longer without things starting to go really badly. You don't want to know how often in the last year I've had to bite the inside of my mouth bloody to keep from saying or doing something I know is stupid in reaction to someone's shenanigans."

Gaius took a deep breath. "I honestly think our Family would be best served with me stepping down. You've a far calmer temperament than I do, for starters, and you've Cedrella at your side to help you in that pit. Not to mention your informal alliance with Longbottom and Potter. The only reason I've waited this long since you first brought it up is because you really didn't need to be dealing with adjusting to the Family Magic and finding your own feet in the Wizengamot while trying to help Harfang at the same time."

Gaius then turned and pulled a small metal bowl and athame out of the cabinet behind his desk. He turned back around and cleared a flat space to set the bowl on that was roughly equidistant between them.

No one really knew how the Family Magics came to be … or if they had known at some point, the knowledge had long since been lost. What was known was that Family Magic began to appear when two generations of wizards were born under the same name. It was very weak and diffuse at first, but gradually gained in strength the longer the family existed. It took a minimum of ten generations to attain full power. At that point, family magic protected the Head of the family from all forms of magical coercion – even the Imperius – and allowed him to command and enforce the obedience of the members of his family to his decrees, if he used certain ritual phrases. It also enforced alliances and oaths, allowed for someone to be adopted into or removed from the family, and levied punishments on oath breakers, among other things.

These facts had been the start of the pureblood extremist movement. Certain families decided that the existence of family magic made them better than the common rabble. The other families, while willing to concede that family magic had its advantages, insisted it didn't make them better than muggleborns. More than one person over the years had posited that muggleborns might just be descendants of pureblood lines through the squibs that had slowly become more and more common. After a few generations, any knowledge of their magical roots would have been lost, so that when a child was born with magic, it would assumed to be an accident of nature. Unfortunately, no research had been done into this possibility. That said, Septimus knew of one Muggleborn who had heard about the idea nearly a hundred years ago, did extensive research into their family tree and actually found a magical some ten generations back or something of the sort. It could have been mere chance, but then again, maybe not.

Fortunately for the families that possessed it, while the family magic was usually wielded by a Head of Family until their death, it was possible to name a successor and transfer control of the family magic prior to death. It had even been done fairly frequently, due to ill health or mental issues caused by increasing age. Twice in known history, family magic had preemptively torn itself away from a Family Head that was abusing their power and choose a successor on its own. Needless to say, the subjects of this tearing had rather gone down in infamy. In both cases, the families had died out within ten generations, though whether that was family magic punishing the family or just a natural consequence of no one wanting anything to do with such a family and them not being able to find spouses as a result Septimus hadn't a clue.

Septimus had had the ritual to transfer Headship memorized since before he went to Hogwarts. Every Heir did, against the sudden death of the Head of the family. While the Heir could not take his place as Head fully until he reached the age of 17, they could begin to undertake control of certain aspects of Headship as early as age fourteen. Nobody *wanted* to have to perform the ritual at fourteen, but they all prepared for it just in case. They had to memorize it because a Regent was not Head of the Family and thus couldn't do the ritual when the Heir was old enough to start taking on the mantle.

Gaius took the athame and cut his palm enough for it to bleed freely for a few moments, then held his hand over the bowl. "I, Gaius Weasley, Head of the Weasley Family, do here invoke the Family Magics, that they may bear witness to the oaths of myself and my son."

There was an immediate wash of the warm, welcoming, bright magic Septimus remembered from his wedding. He fought down a blush as his mind almost immediately diverted to memories of what had followed the last time he'd felt this magic around him.

Across the desk, Gaius grinned at him, well aware of where Septimus' mind had just gone. After all, he'd had much the same happen to him. Normally, an Heir's first experience with the family magic was when they took a wife, so it was hardly surprising.

Gaius took a breath and continued. "I do here of my own free will set down my responsibilities as Head of Family Weasley, and name Septimus Weasley as my successor, so mote it be."

There was a slight hesitation, and Septimus could have sworn he could feel actual *reluctance* on the part of the family magics to turn loose of Gaius, but then the magics gathered, visibly pulling away from Gaius as thick red-gold threads. The threads gathered into a central mass, losing their thread-like appearance in the process, and hovered between Gaius and Septimus as an enormous amorphous blob. As soon as it was totally free, Gaius' shoulders sagged, and Septimus had to restrain the urge to ask if he was all right. He knew that the family magics would not hurt his father - Gaius was just reacting to not having that power wrapped around him for the first time in decades.

It helped him to keep his mouth shut when Septimus realized that once the family magic was free of Gaius, he was *not* imagining an air of expectation that was emanating from the big blob of magic. He took a deep breath as he took the athame from Gaius and cut his own palm enough for it to bleed freely for a few moments, holding his hand over the bowl where Gaius' hand remained, their fingers touching, blood intermingling briefly before it dripped into the bowl.

"I, Septimus Weasley, eldest son and Heir of the Weasley Family, of my own free will give my oath to Family and to Magic, on my life and magic, that I will to the best of my ability protect, honor and serve Magic and Family Weasley. I will speak in their name, hold their charge sacred, and permit none to defile them unchallenged, be they Family, friend, enemy or stranger. So mote it be."

A thin tendril of magic snapped out from the blob and dipped into the bowl, briefly touching the blood there as if to double check the veracity of who had called it and who was wanting to take it on. Then the tendril retreated and the blob of red-gold magic swooped forward and enveloped Septimus. He had to actively fight his instinct to duck despite knowing *this* bit of magic coming at him would not harm him. At absolute worst, it would find him unfit to be Head and refuse to settle on him, returning to Gaius or going to one of Septimus' brothers if Gaius absolutely refused to retain it.

It wrapped around him like a warm cloak on a winter's day. Septimus could actually sense something like emotions from it; chiefly curiosity and a sense of welcome. He felt it touch his mind, something he'd been forewarned about (as were all heirs) to judge his mind and heart.

What he hadn't been expecting was to relive flashes of his life as the family magic rifled through his mind to see if he was worthy of taking up the mantle of Head of House. After what felt like days, but had actually only been a minute or so, the family magic settled more tightly around him.

For a moment, it felt as if Septimus had the weight of the world on his shoulders as the family magic settled on him, twining around his own magic and merging with it. Disconcertingly, for a moment he could see in his mind's eye a complex web of magic, each thread linking him to a Weasley-by-birth, no matter where they were in the world. He couldn't feel their emotions or hear their thoughts, but if they were in mortal danger, died, or had broken an oath, he knew that he would know. He would also know when a new Weasley was born. He might not be able to do anything about such information immediately, due primarily to how wide-spread the family was. He wouldn't always find out instantly when an oath was given and why, for instance, and any hope of getting to someone in mortal danger when they were a continent or more away was nil. That said, he'd know it had happened, and could prepare to respond to whatever was going on as fast as possible.

Those threads would also permit him to enforce obedience to his decrees, if someone fought him, however unlikely that would be, in their family. Doing so wasn't easy, and required a specific ritual in its own right, but it could be done. Same went for banishing someone from the family, or adopting them into it.

Septimus found himself sitting down rather quickly and forcibly as he tried to adjust to the weight, depth, and damn-near sentience of the family magic. Gaius, across from him, watched him sympathetically.

"Just breathe, son. It'll stop being so overwhelming in a bit." Gaius advised.

Septimus blew out a breath that was half amused snort. "Not so sure about that at the moment." He said. "No wonder you fumbled so badly trying to explain all this, and didn't want me trying to adapt to this while helping Harfang. I don't know that I'll do any better when it comes to telling my heir. This is … " He blew out another breath. "I really don't understand how any Head could … " He waved a hand, helpless to get the words out.

"I thought much the same thing, when I took the mantle." Gaius said, understanding what Septimus meant - the idea of abusing their power as Head and facing the wrath of such powerful magic was damned intimidating. "Nevertheless, there have been Heads that have gone against that oath. Small wonder they didn't last long after they did so."

"I envy Charlus. It'll just be him, his parents and grandparents when he takes the Headship."

"I don't think it weighs any lighter on them for their lack of extended family, son. If anything, it might be heavier, because *everything* depends on him and his heir." Gaius pointed out.

"Hmm. Good point. Remind me to compare notes with Charlus someday." Septimus said.

Gaius laughed. "I'll do that." He promised. Then he turned and pulled a small bag from the cabinet behind him, putting the bowl and athame in it. "You'll be needing to take these with you." He said. "You'll not need them often, but you will need them. We can deal with all of this." He waved to the contents of his office. "Another day. Or week." He eyed the room again. "Or month, maybe."

Septimus snickered at his father's opinion of how long it'd take to go through the mess and transfer it to the Den. He probably wasn't wrong about the longest estimate. It wasn't until he reached forward to grab the bag that Septimus realized the cut on his palm had healed. It had healed so well that there was no indication he'd ever cut it. While he knew that would happen, it was still somewhat startling to see it.

"The Wizengamot's going to be in for a few surprises." Septimus said with a grin.

"I honestly don't think they have the faintest clue what they're going to be up against with you boys." Gaius said. "It will be fun to hear all about it. I fully expect for there to be full-blown tantrums thrown before all is said and done … and not by you three."

That made Septimus laugh. "You're probably right … there probably will be." He admitted. "If only because from what you've said, some of the Heads are rather childish."

Gaius snorted. "That's one way of putting it. There's more than one I sometimes have to double check to make sure they're not still in diapers, they act like such infants."


	19. Children

Children

(_)(_)(_)

1949 – 1950

Adapting to being Head of the Family, and the changes in his magic due to the merging, proved to be both simple and ridiculously complicated at the same time. One of the easiest parts, ironically enough, had been transferring all the family records to the Den and organizing it to his satisfaction.

The absolute easiest, of course, had involved Gringotts. As he'd promised Zartang, the first thing he did after he became head was to transfer the Weasley family vaults into Zartang's control. Much to his amusement, Zartang had actually cackled over the challenge of doing with the collective Weasley funds what he had done with Septimus and Cedrella's private account. Septimus had little doubt that in very short order, the Weasleys would be enjoying a collective wealth they hadn't since that run of idiot Heads.

The third thing he'd done - after transferring the family records to the Den - was write every living Weasley, to confirm what sort of condition they and their family were in, and what skills everyone had. For the most part, while the answer on the financial end was 'making ends meet and nothing more', things were pretty good. A few folks needed more or better housing due to increases in their family size, or help shoring up the warding of their homes. Given the sheer number of Weasleys, it was fairly easy to find someone in the family with the requisite skills that lived close enough and ask them to help with those cases. More than one person asked for advice and assistance with investment of their private funds, and Septimus gave them the advice that had gotten his and Cedrella's funds in such a rosy picture.

The fourth thing he'd done - which happened just after he'd sent the letters to his kinfolk - and by far the most problematic was Septimus' entrance into the Wizengamot. Harfang had been pleased and relieved to have him there. Harfang had found his feet, to be sure, but it would be a lot easier on the quietest Marauder with one of his fellows there for immediate backup assistance. Septimus had made the decision to keep his entrance as low-key as was possible. Their triad wasn't complete yet, after all, and they had planned to wait until all three of them were in the Wizengamot to really start rocking the boat. Septimus needed to slide in as quietly as he could so as to gain as many allies as possible before then, rather than stomping in, causing a scene, and making everyone hate him his first day.

It was now that all of Cedrella's extra tutelage, both what she had gotten from Sirius and what she had imparted to Septimus over the years in preparation, paid its dividends. Septimus would never be comfortable with the lying, scheming, double-dealing, and other unpleasantness that happened in the Wizengamot. He at least knew how to handle it when it was aimed at him, could actually spot the nastier stuff when it was going on, and could lie straight-faced himself if necessary to mislead antagonistic Wizengamot members. Both he and Cedrella had immediately vetoed any attempt at Septimus actively participating in double-dealing, blackmailing, or any of the other dirty tactics common to certain members of the Wizengamot. It went against everything Septimus had stood for since he could remember for one, and he just didn't have the mentality to pull it off for another. Not to mention the fact that he needed to keep his nose as clean as was possible if he was going to have any chance at establishing a *good* reputation in that pit of vipers.

That said, he was almost looking forward to the first time some idiot tried to blackmail or otherwise coerce him. That was going to be fun. Because it was completely legal for Septimus to demand an honor duel if someone went too far. The person he called out would then either have to apologize or duel him. It was something he planned to take full advantage of, as most of the Heads in the Wizengamot were quite a bit older than he was, and hadn't been in a duel (if they'd been in one at all) since they were the age Septimus was now. He'd wipe the floor with pretty much all of them.

He figured it would only take him challenging would-be coercers to a duel once or twice before the word spread and people started thinking twice about trying to strong-arm him. Finding out that he would not hesitate to actually duel to defend his honor - and that he could beat their asses fairly easily - would make all but the nastiest think twice about messing with him. After that, people would mostly leave him alone, at least in that respect.

Seeing the Wizengamot from the inside was disconcertingly upsetting. He'd paid attention to his father's rants and calmer discussions about it, so he had known it was bad. He hadn't quite realized just how bad it was, thouhg, and how little actually got done in a day.

The Wizengamot sessions were supposed to start at nine am. Most days, they didn't get started until 10, between people arriving late and/or carrying on conversations despite attempts to get them to shut up and sit down. Once everyone was finally seated, they'd go over the minutes of the last session, which would invariably cause an argument as someone (usually more than one someone) contested something in the minutes. When that finally got settled and they finished the reading of the minutes, it'd be nearly noon, and they'd open up the old business.

Opening the old business invariably included an argument over which bit of old business to start on first. This included motions and countermotions and calls for votes. If they were lucky and managed to agree on what to start working on, they'd reach that agreement right about lunchtime, which was a two-hour break.

They would reconvene around three pm and if necessary finish figuring out what old business they were going to work on, then start actually working on the old business. That involved a lot of speeches and arguments – most of which got quite heated – and on many occasions outright name-calling. On more than one occasion, there was an actual fistfight in the chamber. Septimus was damn sure that only the fact that pulling your wand in a Wizengamot meeting except to give an oath or register a vote would get you a stint in Azkaban kept things from devolving into duels on those occasions. If they were incredibly lucky, they'd wrap up the particular bit of old business they'd started working on, but many days they didn't manage that.

Suffice it to say, by the time two months of meetings had passed, Septimus fully understood why his father had said he didn't have the temperament for dealing with the Wizengamot. Even Septimus had been highly tempted to smack a few heads together most days. It was like watching a bunch of toddlers have tantrums all at once.

The Wizengamot may have been the most headache-inducing part of being a Head, but getting used to the changes in his magic took Septimus a long time - nearly a full year. It wasn't that he was more powerful or something like that, but the family magic altered how his magic worked somewhat, and it took Septimus a while to get used to it.

All in all, it made for a rather hectic time. Before Septimus quite realized it, his and Cedrella's tenth anniversary arrived. They celebrated it quietly, as was their usual wont.

Septimus took the day off (rather gratefully, it must be said) and they spent a rather delightful and lazy morning indeed, between sleeping in and then making love until they'd worn each other out. They'd settled in to enjoy a late brunch that qualified more as actual lunch due to the hour when Cedrella glanced over at him.

"I got you a little something, my dear." She said.

Septimus blinked. Unlike with Muggle marriages, anniversaries didn't have gift requirements. Granted, he'd still gotten Cedrella a bouquet of her favorite flowers every year, but that had been it. "Ced, you know you don't have to …"

Cedrella grinned at him. "Oh, but I'm pretty sure this is something you'll want." She said as she handed over a small box wrapped in bright paper.

Septimus almost didn't take it, because Cedrella had the gleam in her eye that meant she was up to no good. A Black up to no good was dangerous … even if they weren't out to kill you. That had never changed with Cedrella (or her sister or cousin), and it had kept the male Marauders on their toes over the years.

He couldn't resist pulling his wand and poking at the present, much to Cedrella's visible amusement. Only when he'd assured himself there wasn't anything obvious going on, and had time to remind himself that Cedrella wouldn't be this overt about a prank, he opened it.

Inside the box lay a baby blanket, bonnet, and booties.

Septimus stared at them a second before the implications hit him, and then his head snapped up and he stared at Cedrella, eyes wide. "Ced – you … "

She just grinned and nodded.

Septimus whooped, jumped to his feet, snatched her up and started to swing her around. Halfway through the swing, he realized what he was doing, and that it might not be a good idea, and abruptly put her down.

"Oh, Merlin, sorry … I, you aren't … ?"

Cedrella laughed at his complete inability to spit out a complete sentence. "I'm fine, Septimus. No morning sickness to speak of, and certainly no problem with dizziness. I honestly wouldn't even have suspected I was pregnant if it hadn't been for the fact I hadn't needed to attend to certain matters for the last two months. I checked with a healer last week while you were in the Wizengamot and they confirmed it."

Thankfully, she realized he'd put her down in deference to a potentially tetchy stomach, something she knew his mother had suffered from early in her last pregnancy from tales he'd told her, and not because he thought she was suddenly delicate, breakable and helpless. He didn't want to know how badly she'd have hexed him if she thought he'd done it because of that. Septimus grinned at her and then proceeded to kiss her silly.

They ended up spending the rest of the day curled up together. It took a few hours before Septimus was coherent enough to put a whole sentence together, which managed to amuse even him. He'd not quite expected to have that strong a reaction to the prospect of becoming a father.

"I'm surprised you didn't do that in front of the gang." He admitted to her. "So that I wouldn't ever get to live it down."

"Oh, you won't." Cedrella said with a wicked grin. "But this, I wanted all to myself. A wife has to have some ammunition friends don't, after all."

"I'm doomed." Septimus said, trying to sound doleful and not really managing. Mostly because he kept breaking out in a stupid, goofy grin every so often. This sort of doom and gloom, he definitely didn't mind.

The Marauders spent the next few months giving Septimus all kinds of hell. The worst part was, he really didn't blame them. He had an unfortunate tendency to be a bit goofy about the whole thing, and had to actively restrain himself from dancing attendance on Cedrella like she was delicate and helpless.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Cedrella had a remarkably easy pregnancy, virtually devoid of any of the maladies that frequently struck pregnant women. Doubly fortunately, she was more amused by Septimus' antics than annoyed, and didn't take any of it the wrong way.

"Truthfully, I'd be more offended if you weren't so wound up about your firstborn." Cedrella told him at one point. "Mother said that any man worth having would be invested in the whole process."

They spent the months making all sorts of plans – the usual grandiose daydreams and plans first-time parents have a tendency to indulge in. They argued amiably over names. Cedrella insisted on picking at least one girl's name, despite the fact there hadn't been a female Weasley born in generations.

"It'd be just our luck to not have a girl's name picked, and have a girl." She pointed out, and Septimus really couldn't argue with that sort of logic.

Septimus raided his parents' home for the bulk of the baby supplies they'd need, including clothes for the first months. A newborn infant wasn't going to care if it was wearing secondhand clothes, after all. In the end, they'd needed only diapers, bottles, and a few other odds and ends.

Septimus had cause to thank all that Auror training he'd had when Cedrella went into labor. It kept him from completely losing his head. He hadn't managed to keep his head completely, but he hadn't been a useless wreck, either. He managed to get them to St. Mungo's without too much dithering, and even remembered to call the other Marauders.

It was just as well that he had called them in, because Cedrella's luck as regarded an easy pregnancy ran out when it came to the actual birth. She was in labor for two full days. Charlus and Harfang had to literally drag him out of the room whenever the Healers had enough of his pacing and fretting and banished him for a time. He would end up pacing the corridors for a few hours until he couldn't handle it anymore, then storm back into the room with Cedrella, starting the cycle all over again. He didn't sleep the entire time, and only drank or ate if Charlus or Harfang forced something on him.

While Charlus and Harfang dealt with Septimus, Dorea and Callidora did what they could to help Cedrella, which mostly amounted to distracting her as best they could with gossip, and making sure she didn't get her hands on her wand whenever she hit a 'I'm going to hex his balls off' episode.

Finally, however, their firstborn made his way into the world. Despite the fact he was squash-faced, nearly puce, and honestly ugly as all get out, Septimus was smitten the instant the tiny bundle was put in his arms. Cedrella, much to her amusement, almost literally had to prise the babe out of Septimus' arms in order to feed the tyke.

They decided to call him Arthur.


	20. Changes and Problems

Changes and Problems

(_)(_)(_)

1950 – 1952

Arthur quickly became the apple of Septimus' eye, and it had nothing to do with him being the Weasley heir. Septimus spent as much time as he possibly could with the little tyke. Cedrella was a highly amused enabler in this once she was completely back on her feet after the rather stressful birth. She'd always taken lunch with Septimus, as it was pretty much the only time they got to see each other during the day. After Arthur was born, he was included in the lunches as a matter of course.

This, despite the fact it wasn't exactly the 'proper' way to raise a child, at least not by the standards Cedrella had grown up with. She'd not taken a meal with her family until she was five and had begun her lessons, and even then it had been a rare treat until she was judged worthy of attending the Children's Ball.

They actually had enough to hire on a nanny if only barely, but Septimus and Cedrella had talked and decided it was a completely unnecessary expense. Maybe once they had more than one child a nanny would become necessary, but certainly not with one. Septimus managed to convince Cedrella fairly easily in this regard, as his parents had never used one, and he and his brothers had turned out just fine. Granted, they were all a touch rougher around the edges manners-wise than the cream of society liked to see, but they were otherwise fine.

Playing with Arthur and sharing meals swiftly became the best part of their days. Sometime shortly after Arthur's birth, Sirius began to act a touch oddly. It wasn't all that noticeable at first, which made pinpointing when he started going odd difficult, but it got worse fairly quickly. He became erratic, capricious, occasionally cruel and ... well, generally not himself.

If it hadn't been for the fact he was Head of the Family, Septimus and Cedrella both would have suspected some sort of behavior-altering potion, but that sort of thing fit under the 'magical coercion' that Heads were protected against. Cedrella's favorite theory involved a long-term poison that had erratic behavior as a side effect, which wasn't covered under the protections. Septimus agreed it was possible, but privately wondered if the streak of near-insanity that tended to pop up in the Black family from time to time wasn't rearing its head. The only problem with that was that it normally became clear a Black was a sufferer when they were still a child.

Whatever was going on, it wasn't detectable by spell or potion. Cedrella tried repeatedly as Sirius' behavior and decision making ability deteriorated, to no avail. She'd even consulted with Mediwizards, and snuck one into Sirius' presence long enough for them to throw Healer-level detection spells at him to no effect.

Meanwhile, Septimus had to deal with the Wizengamot. The situation there continued to deteriorate, much to his exasperation. Practically nothing was getting done, no matter what he and Harfang did. They'd gained one or two allies, but most of the old members were content to stick with their existing power blocks, too busy fighting to form blocks under their leadership to want to ally with them, or inclined to treat them like they were still children. It was more than a little exasperating, and was making forming their own block rather difficult. They had a feeling they'd end up having to wait for a while longer, until some of the old coots started dying off and their sons took over. Maybe then they'd have more success.

Worse, the chaos and infighting was spreading outside of the Wizengamot. Normally, what happened in the Wizengamot stayed there for the most part, but the antagonism between various Heads was spreading to their families, resulting in a number of rather tense moments at the Children's Balls, from what Septimus was hearing. Several families that normally hosted parties near Yule, Samhain or Beltane started becoming more selective about their invitations, disincluding those their Heads were feuding with in the Wizengamot.

Those days also marked the first time the epithet 'mudblood' was heard to fall from someone's lips. It was soon clear that the epithet was coming from people who were roughly ten years younger than Septimus – in the age group with his brother Bilius. Predictably, it was coming from scions of the Darker families, Orion and Walburga Black chief among them. Abraxas Malfoy wasn't far behind them, though, despite being much nearer Septimus' age.

Then, at the start of the 1951-52 school year, Headmaster Dippet announced his intention to retire at the end of that school year, and named Albus Dumbledore as both his Deputy Headmaster and successor. The choice of successor was greeted with near-universal approval from the Light and Neutral families in a rather disconcerting display of support. A young woman named Minerva McGonagall was also announced as Dumbledore's anticipated replacement as Transfiguration teacher and Head of Gryffindor House.

Septimus and Cedrella had been one of the few to be displeased at the news of Dumbledore's promotion, the others being the rest of the Marauders. Having seen Dumbledore in action around the Ministry and Diagon Alley, not to mention remembering their school days, all six were rather suspicious and concerned. They could see that Dumbledore was up to something, but what, they couldn't quite figure out. The one thing they all agreed on was that this was only the beginning for the man, and that there would be more to come.

It was to the point that the Marauders were wondering if Dumbledore hadn't been Sorted Slytherin, despite everyone thinking he was as Gryffindor as it got. They suspected the assumption of Gryffindor was based more on the phoenix's presence and him kicking Grindlewald's butt than anything else, despite the fact that neither thing precluded Dumbledore having been Slytherin. Sadly, there weren't all that many people still living who had gone to school with Dumbledore. Those that remained were either supporters or not talking, which made finding out if their suspicions were correct difficult.

The news was bad mostly because the Headmaster of Hogwarts had a seat in the Wizengamot. As the head educator of the upcoming generation, it had long ago been decided the Headmaster should be aware of and able to contribute to the lawmaking process. Traditionally, the seat was proxied by someone in the Headmaster's family, as the Headmaster was generally too busy to attend meetings himself. This seat would give Dumbledore *two* votes, as he was also Head of Family Dumbledore. Septimus was firmly of the mind that the man didn't need even one vote, never mind two.

The Marauders were very sure that wouldn't be the case with Dumbledore. For one, no one was even sure if he had family. If he did, they were clearly not speaking to each other, which meant Dumbledore was unlikely to ask them to proxy for him. How Dumbledore planned on handling that problem no one was sure, but Septimus was betting it wouldn't end well. He already had many of the Light and Neutral families looking on him with favor, and more than a few agreeing with his stances on things.

The worst part of it was, Septimus agreed with a number of things Dumbledore was saying, at least in theory. Unfortunately, there was a huge gap between what Dumbledore said and what he actually did. Worse, most of what Dumbledore was saying bothered Septimus rather a lot. He wouldn't really have paid it any mind – after all, not even the Marauders agreed on every issue – except for the fact that Dumbledore had an uncomfortable level of power and influence for a single man who had been all but unknown a decade ago.

From what Septimus knew, Dumbledore had been content to allow his Family vote to be proxied prior to his involvement in the War, and the proxy had never introduced any possible bills or taken any memorable stances on any particular issue. Dumbledore's sudden interest in lobbying and politics was worrisome. It made Septimus pay more attention to what he was saying and doing. It didn't help that Dumbledore had begun to attempt to get chummy with Septimus and Harfang, clearly trying to get them on his side. The grandfatherly attitude and subtle reminders of their childhood foibles – an attempt to remind them he was older and wiser and ought to be allowed to guide them, Septimus assumed – didn't go over quite as well as Dumbledore had hoped, given their opinions of him during their school days.

Then, just to make things even worse – there was a wedding announced. Between Orion and Walburga Black. The Marauders were utterly horrified.

"They're second cousins!" Dorea practically shouted, when the three families met up to talk about it. "It's disgusting! Why are Arcturus, Pollux, and Sirius letting this happen?" She gave a convulsive shudder.

Cedrella wasn't in much better shape. "I don't understand it either, Dorea. It's utterly foul. Sirius … well, he's been getting more and more erratic over the last couple years, so I can understand why he is letting this happen, but what hold have those two got over their parents that they're permitting this to happen? Do you have any idea, Dorea? Pollux is your brother."

"I … I don't know." Dorea said on a sigh. "Honestly, our part of the family hasn't ever been quite right that I can remember." She winced. "I think because of Marius. I don't remember him – I was only three when he was cast out. At least, I hope to Merlin it was 'only' cast out – but it affected Pollux and Cassiopeia, I think. Pollux especially. Marius was cast out just before Pollux went to Hogwarts, from what I discovered later."

Marius was the squib boy child Septimus had heard about all those years ago, but hadn't known for sure he existed until Dorea joined their number. She had been able to confirm his existence, though she'd only spoken of him once or twice before now. While she had been far too young to have any real memory of him, and was thus somewhat less affected than her siblings, she was still bothered by the whole thing.

"That would have an effect on a person." Septimus agreed. "Which just leaves the question of what's going on with Sirius and Arcturus to allow this. I know Cedrella's done diagnostics on Sirius several times, since she is still his favorite of you girls, but she's come up with nothing."

"Which either means this is the insanity our family deals with popping up, or a long-lasting potion of some sort that leaves no trace of its presence in the body. Of which there are far too many possibilities." Callidora said. "And most of them don't fall under the 'anti-coercion protection' Family Heads enjoy, as their primary uses are for other things, and the mental instability is a side effect."

"The worst part is that pair is going to eventually be Head of the family." Callidora continued with a moue of distaste. "That is going to be a disaster. And there isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it."

They came close to deciding not to attend the party after the wedding, but in the end decided to go, half-hoping the family magics would have none of this nonsense. Unfortunately, the vows took, which they all found incredible. Orion and Walburga were entirely too smug for Septimus' taste during the party, and were rather conspicuous in staying longer than was usually the case.

That said, Septimus took an unholy amount of glee in taking part in the 'keep the newlyweds from disappearing' game when they finally began to try to disappear from the party. So did the rest of the Marauders. Between the six of them and some unscheduled and unexpected assistance from Arthur, who grabbed hold of Walburga's hair when Cedrella was stalling her and got tangled up – they managed to stall the couple almost half an hour all on their own.

Two months after the wedding, Sirius died unexpectedly.

The timing of it all was so suspicious that it made Septimus' teeth ache. The worst part of it was that there was nothing any of them could do – whatever had been done to Sirius had managed to get around the protections of the family magic, and while Arcturus was now protected himself, he hadn't been prior to taking up the mantle, which meant that for all anyone knew, he could have been under the Imperius when he agreed to let Walburga marry Orion.

Worse yet, in a move that all but confirmed the Marauders' suspicions about the Orion/Walburga marriage, Pollux and his wife retreated to a country house and more or less barricaded themselves in, refusing all visitors, even their own children and siblings.

"The only good news in this entire mess is that it's very unlikely Orion will ever become Head, despite him thinking otherwise." Septimus told Cedrella in the aftermath. "The odds on the family magic finding him worthy of being Head are miniscule. But their kids would be the first in line to take up the mantle if he fails the test, and he and Walburga will be able to mold those kids any way they please until then."

"Which will be nearly as bad for the family as if Orion managed to make Head." Cedrella said with a sigh. "And might be worse, because Merlin alone knows what poison those two will whisper in their children's' ears."

"We'll do what we can to counteract it." Septimus promised her. "At the absolute worst, we'll see them in the summer after they're eligible for the Ball. And we can write them once they're old enough to read. It'll help."

"It just feels like the whole world has begun to go mad." Cedrella said. "And there doesn't seem to be anything we can do to stop it."

"Maybe not, but we'll try our hardest anyway." Septimus told her. "You never know when it'll make a difference."


	21. Fighting Back

Fighting Back

1953 – 1955

The next three years were incredibly difficult. Septimus watched in horror as the Dark families began to unite, one by one, in a way that made it clear they were being led. Led by a capable and clever commander, no less. The sort of person Hitler had been before he went insane, was Septimus' best guess. Someone smooth and suave and with a gilded tongue.

Worse, the Light and Neutral families were beginning to fall apart into tiny, squabbling factions that disagreed vehemently and sometimes violently on nearly every issue. The end result was that the Dark families were getting more and more stringent laws passed simply because the other families couldn't get their heads out of their asses long enough to work together and vote the laws down.

Worse was the fact that Dumbledore was gaining followers. By the time 1955 rolled around, Dumbledore led the largest Light-side faction. While that wasn't saying much at that point given that the other Light and Neutral factions had as few as three people in them, Dumbledore had been very clever with his faction. He may only have had a half dozen or so people in his group, but they were some of the biggest shakers and movers, which gave Dumbledore's faction both added potency in the Wizengamot and greater legitimacy.

What pissed Septimus off was the fact that while Dumbledore had a strong power base, he did not seem to be doing much of anything with it. He seemed to be more interested in rhetoric than in action. Septimus had heard him talking to people more than once about how this or that thing was wrong, but he never took a stand. Worse, the people around him seemed to be eating it up.

The biggest problem there was the fact that one of Dumbledore's followers was Charlus' father. He pretty much thought that Dumbledore was the best thing since sliced bread, and every word that came out of Dumbledore's mouth was gospel. Dumbledore was not shy about using that to his advantage. Due to what Dumbledore was doing, Septimus strongly suspected that Dumbledore was aware of the fact that he, Harfang, and Charlus had plans for the Wizengamot once all three of them were in there.

There was no other explanation for the fact that Dumbledore convinced Charlus' father that there was absolutely no need to step down as Head. He managed to convince his father that Charlus was young and intemperate, and as yet ill suited to the responsibility. Charlus was honestly worried that Dumbledore would somehow convince his father to refuse Charlus the title entirely if at all humanly possible, and force them to wait for Charlus' child to grow old enough to take the mantle. They were just lucky that was the only choice left due to the fact that there were no other Potters, otherwise Charlus was very sure Dumbledore would have convinced his father to choose another heir. As it stood, until his father either wised up - which was highly unlikely - or died, his father would be heeding Dumbledore and voting as Dumbledore suggested.

Not a one of Dumbledore's voting 'suggestions' sat right with any of the Marauders. In line with his habit of talking and not acting, Dumbledore was content to vote for all but the absolute worst of the Dark-sponsored laws. He told everyone who heeded his opinion to do likewise, and assured them that it was best to humor their compatriots. That the folks who sponsored the laws would come to see the error of their thinking in time, and the laws could easily be repealed when they had.

The wrong-headedness of that sort of thinking made Septimus long to call the old man out and hex him to bits. Unfortunately, there was no real way to do so, as Dumbledore was careful to never cross the line into giving offense. Not with Septimus, and not with anyone else. Actually, Dumbledore made it a real point to seem to be the reasonable one at every opportunity. It just added to his influence. He was the wise, reasonable, mature one, while people around him flew off the handle like the children they were. Septimus himself barely managed to keep from falling into that particular trap. Harfang had better luck because of his quiet personality - he just didn't react violently to things. Charlus and Septimus could only grit their teet and whinge in private.

As the second leg in his attempt to de-fang the Marauders before they could do much of anything in the Wizengamot, Dumbledore was directly targeting Septimus and Cedrella in several ways. He seemed to do a lot of whispering about the fact that Cedrella was a Black and a Slytherin, and that she was corrupting Septimus and turning him Dark. Septimus was honestly waiting for the day when Dumbledore overstepped himself in that regard, because Cedrella's revenge would be ... impressive.

Fortunately, Dumbledore's manipulations didn't seem to be working. Yet. A lifetime of solid work ethic, incorruptible morals and a history of standing up for what was right was standing Septimus in good stead, as was his record as a war hero. It didn't hurt that Harfang and Charlus backed him at every turn. Though, in his bitterer moments, Septimus fully expected Dumbledore to eventually try to cast aspersions on them publicly as well, given he'd begun to do so privately with Charlus. They had, after all, also married into the Black family and ergo were going Dark - at least by Dumbledores' logic.

Septimus grudgingly gave credit where it was due and acknowledged Dumbledore's wisdom in not trying to trash-talk Harfang to Augusta. That would end spectacularly badly for Dumbledore, because Augusta was fierce in a way seldom seen in women of her generation. She'd been active on the dueling circuit when she'd been younger for crying out loud. That was all but unheard of in a woman in her day. Her hex-first-question-later tendencies had only gotten worse when she'd finally found her feet after her husband's death. Despite her advanced age and the fact they were all adults, she was a violently protective mama dragon where her children were concerned.

The whole mess with Dumbledore made Septimus long for their school days so he could prank him into submission and have done. He could target half the rest of the Wizengamot while he was at it. It wasn't like schoolyard pranks would be beneath the Wizengamot's collective maturity level.

Cedrella got pregnant again and gave birth to a second son in 1953, much to their mutual delight. Two years later, Harfang and Callidora produced their firstborn, a son they named Frank. Septimus quickly discovered that becoming a godfather was nearly as much fun as becoming a father, and doted on young Frank nearly as much as his parents did.

The Marauders had decided shortly after Harfang and Callidora had married that they'd be godparents to each others' children when the time came. Being a godparent, unlike in the muggle world, was a solemn, magically-bound duty. It was the godparents' place to raise, care for, and defend their godchild. They were even supposed to defend the child against its own parents if the parents became abusive. To not do so carried heavy magical penalties, up to and including the loss of one's magic if the situation was dire enough.

More than one eyebrow was raised in the general populace at the idea of Septimus being godparent to the child of such a high-ranking family when the news broke. Fortunately there hadn't been a damn thing anyone could do about it, not even Dumbledore. The fact that the Longbottoms trusted Septimus to raise their kid right - including full knowledge of their social station and everything that went with that - went a very, very long way to permanently silencing the doubters that still wondered about the new Weasley Head. It did more, ironically enough, than the fact that the Weasleys were enjoying a fiscal plentitude they'd not had in hundreds of years.

Speaking of fiscal plentitude, shortly after his position as godfather became public knowledge, Septimus began to get letters from the members of the family outside the UK, all of them thanking and praising him for his advice, and how much it was helping their own private financial statuses. He'd also been able to increase the stipend family members received, something that hadn't happened since their financial ruin. Septimus figured that in a generation or two, if their fortune continued to grow, they'd be able to buy back the Weasley heirlooms that had been sold to pay off the debt. Records had been kept of who had bought what, thank goodness.

Nineteen fifty-five marked the end of an ancient tradition. That year, the Children's Ball was called off for the first time in close to a thousand years. The squabbling between families had gotten to the point where each faction only wanted to interact with their fellows. No one had been able to agree on who would host that year's Ball, as every name put forward had significant numbers of families flatly refusing to attend.

The Marauders agreed that it was just shy of being a literal crime that the Ball was called off. Sadly, none of them could figure out how to fix the situation. They could see it degenerating, and could pretty much tell where it was going to end. It was going to end in blood and pain and death, and none of the Marauders wanted to see that shit again in their lifetimes. Sadly, it was looking more and more likely that they would.

The only good news in all that mess was that Arcturus wasn't falling in with the Dark crowd. At least not yet. He consistently voted against the increasingly controlling laws in the Wizengamot, and refused to be seen with the Heads of the Dark-aligned families. He'd also apparently seen the same pattern that the Marauders had, and had become more than a little paranoid about his health and safety. He wore dueling armor constantly to protect himself from being hexed whenever he wasn't alone. From what Septimus had heard, Arcturus was also obsessive about testing his food and drink for contaminants. Given what had happened with Sirius, Septimus didn't blame the man one bit.

Much to everyone's mutual relief, Orion and Walburga had gone quiet, as if they knew they couldn't afford to pull anything else without all hell breaking loose. They'd retired to their home, seemingly content to sit back and wait. Septimus made sure he kept on top of where they were and what they were doing, just in case. He doubted they were done with their scheming.

Then, in August, Charlus' father got hit by one of those illnesses the elderly fall prey to … and didn't recover from it. As when Harfang's father had died, the Marauders closed ranks around Charlus, providing him with as much support as they could. The day after the funeral, the Marauders met.

"My father went to his grave questioning my judgment and calling me a willful child." Charlus growled, glaring at the table. "I am never going to forgive Dumbledore for that. Not as long as I live."

Despite the anger in his voice, Septimus was pretty sure Charlus was close to tears. Not that Septimus blamed him a bit. Losing a parent at all had to be hard. Losing a parent under these circumstances had to be doubly so.

"I don't blame you." Septimus said. "I'm probably lucky I got the Headship before Dumbledore found his feet in the Wizengamot, or he'dve tried the same thing on my old man." Then Septimus laughed. "And gotten hexed halfway to hell for it, Azkaban sentence for dueling in the chambers be damned."

That made both men smile, if only briefly in Charlus' case. Septimus' parents weren't quite on Augusta's level of protective, but they weren't far from it. Dumbledore would have paid dearly for any trash-talking. It made Septimus feel more than a little badly that Charlus' father hadn't had that same sort of streak in him.

"We're in for a hell of a fight, guys. I honestly don't know if we can turn this around." Harfang said quietly, bringing up what they'd gotten together to discuss. "Things have degenerated so badly in so short a time."

"Someone is definitely pulling the Dark Families' strings." Septimus agreed. "If we can figure out who and how, we might be able to nullify the worst of their venom. Neutralizing Dumbledore's going to be even harder. He makes it look like he's invested in the Light winning, but if you actually pay attention … "

"He does the absolute minimum required to make it look like he's trying to fight the Dark families' voting block, and then a whole lot of talking to explain why it's not working, and talking people into not making a stand, because they need to give these people a chance to realize the error of their ways, a chance to return to the Light, blah blah blah." Harfang continued. "It's really irritating."

"So we need to come up with a bomb-proof plan to shove this shit back down his throat, and cut the Darks off at the knees." Charlus says, getting a look on his face that Septimus and Harfang know very well.

It has never ceased to amaze Septimus, but he could literally *see* when Charlus' tactician brain swung into gear. Charlus got this squinty-eyed, flinty look on his face, eyes flicking back and forth like he could actually see the plan his brain was cooking up playing out in front of him. Without a word, Septimus shoved a roll of parchment, quill and ink into Charlus' line of sight. Seconds later, Charlus was scribbling things down in a shorthand that only he ever seemed to be able to make sense of, despite him having tried to explain it to Septimus and Harfang on multiple occasions.

Harfang shot Septimus an amused look while they let Charlus mutter and scribble as he plotted. Septimus returned it, and felt vaguely grateful. If there was anything that would ease Charlus' grief and anger, it was plotting the downfall of the man who'd hurt him so badly.

After about ten minutes, Charlus glanced up and grinned. "I think I've got a plan."

"Talk to us, Charlus." Harfang said.

"The families are dividing into factions, right? Well … what if we do something that negates a lot of that?"

"Like what?" Septimus wanted to know.

"Use the pureblood fanaticism and rank-consciousness against itself." Charlus said. "Think. Just how many families have married into the Blacks? How many families could Arcturus influence if he put his foot down?"

Septimus' eyes went wide. "Merlin. That's … "

"Vicious, brutal, brilliant, and just might work." Harfang put in his two knuts, looking as startled as Septimus. "The challenge will be to get him to listen to us."

"Send Cedrella after him. He knows damn good and well she was Sirius' favorite of the girls, and the most political savvy of the lot. If she backs this, he might be more willing to listen." Septimus said.

"We won't get the Heads, not right away." Charlus said. "But with the various wives, children, and so on of Black blood putting pressure on their non-Black relations, it will eventually move up the food chain, and force the Heads to act, one way or another, Light, Dark, or Neutral."

"At absolute worst, it'll clear up the battle lines a bit. At best, it might just shut the worst of the squabbling down entirely." Septimus said with a nod. "Either way, it'll help by hitting pretty much all sides of the fight at once."

Because the Blacks, as one of the more prolific families, had intermarried with literally every other pureblood family. Heck, they came close to doing it every generation, for crying out loud. And as one of the oldest of the pureblood families, what the Head of that family did and said carried immense weight.

"In the meantime, the three of us start agitating to get those laws removed, and vote any new ones down." Harfang said. "With any luck, we can keep things from getting too much worse before Charlus' idea starts bearing fruit."

"They want a war? We'll give them one. Just not the sort they were expecting." Charlus said.


	22. Don't Mess With Blacks

Don't Mess With Blacks

(_)(_)(_)

1955

Cedrella had been a bit startled and more than a bit impressed by the plan Charlus had come up with. Not for the first time did she wonder whether or not Slytherin had been a possibility the Sorting Hat had contemplated for him and Septimus, as both men had shown more than a little cunning and ambition over the years – far more of those traits than the typical 'pure' Gryffindor, at any rate.

The best part of it was that their idea had more of a likelihood to work than either man realized. This was mostly because Cedrella had been far more involved with Sirius and Arcturus than either man quite realized. Oh, Septimus knew she'd been learning the political scene of course, but he still (much to her amusement) hadn't realized how much she'd been taught or why. He didn't know that she'd spent a lot of time in Arcturus' company, as he had to learn and keep abreast of things in the Wizengamot as future Head of Family Black, and Sirius had merely added her to Arcturus' lessons once she'd caught up.

As a result, Cedrella had become quite close with Arcturus. They had fairly similar outlooks on a number of subjects, though Arcturus tended to be Neutral verging on Dark, whereas Cedrella was almost dead-center of Neutral. If anything, much to her amused chagrin, she leaned towards the Light rather than the Dark.

Because of that history, Arcturus would be far more likely to not only hear her out, but to actually act on 'her' idea. Actually, even more than that, he'd be willing to permit her to approach him at all, since he'd become understandably paranoid in the aftermath of Sirius' rather suspicious illness and death.

She wrote Arcturus the day after Septimus told her about the talk he'd had with Charlus and Harfang. She got a letter that same evening granting her an audience the next day.

She dressed simply but elegantly for the meeting, opting for a semi-formal midnight blue robe with minimal embellishments – only slender silver piping on sleeves and collar. She flooed to the Manor precisely on time. Arcturus was waiting for her when she stepped out of the fireplace, looking pleased to see her. He greeted her with a hug.

"It's been too long, Cedrella. How are things?"

"Quite well." Cedrella said. "The children are a delight – you really should come by sometime. You haven't met the two youngest yet."

Their third child - and by mutual agreement their last - had been born only a few months previously. Cedrella's three pregnancies had all been ridiculously easy, for which she gave continual thanks. Better yet, only Arthur had had a difficult birth. The other two had been born with a minimal amount of fuss and bother. At least on her end. Septimus hadn't really improved much in his performance at either birth, something she teased him about fairly frequently.

"Hmmm, no, I haven't." Arcturus said as he led her into his office. "So, you wrote telling me you needed to speak to me?"

"Yes, it's about the situation in the Wizengamot." Cedrella said as she settled into the chair he'd indicated.

A few seconds later a house elf popped in with a tray of tea and sandwiches, then popped out. Cedrella automatically began to pour and serve, having become accustomed to doing so in her own home. Arcturus gave her an amused look but did not demure, though he did tap his wand against the lip of the cup, murmuring a detection spell as an automatic precaution. Cedrella made no comment. Again, after Sirius, it was only common sense to take such a precaution.

"It is also about the situation the Family finds itself in." Cedrella continued once they both had cups and plates. "Both situations dovetail a bit."

"Indeed." Arcturus agreed. "There is no way that Orion will ever make Head. I can't prove it, but … "

"The odds on what happened to Sirius being natural are very, very, very long." Cedrella finished.

"Precisely. I have no idea what exactly they did, but the maneuvering became rather obvious." Arcturus said.

"No subtlety at all." Cedrella agreed, making a moue of distaste. "The problem lies in the fact that while Orion will never make Head, his children, if they have any, will be the next in line. And he and Walburga will have the raising of that heir."

Arcturus made a disgusted face. "Quite. Unfortunately, I am at a loss as to what I can do to mitigate circumstances."

"I believe there is an old custom that might serve." Cedrella said. "I remember a decree that said that an heir should be raised by the current Head – even if the Heir is not the current Head's child. The decree allowed for the Head of the Family to bring said Heir into their home and raise them. After all, the heir must learn their duties, and where better to learn them than from the current Head?"

Arcturus blinked. "I had forgotten about that old bit of trivia." He admitted. "It will serve admirably when the time comes – if it comes. If they produce no children, I'll have to figure out who to name as heir."

"At this point." Cedrella said. "That would mean either Alphard, Phillip or Marcus. There are no other male heirs to be had."

Alphard was of an age with Orion, and a full Black, which really made him the better choice than her own two younger sons, though they would be the next in line if something happened to Alphard. There were, of course, other sons born to Black women, but they were all heirs to other families, which made them nonviable as potential future Heads for Family Black.

Arcturus nodded. "I will speak with Alphard and appoint him back-up Heir in the event Orion and Walburga either don't spawn, don't spawn a boy, or don't spawn a sane boy. With one of your two younger boys, whichever one seems more viable, as a double backup." He took a sip of his tea. "And the other issue at hand?"

"The Wizengamot is out of control, from what Septimus is saying. There are a half a hundred factions all fighting for their slice and nothing at all is getting done. I know the Wizengamot has always been contentious and had factions, but this is ridiculous." Cedrella said.

"I tend to agree with you and your husband." Arcturus said. "I don't know for sure what's been going on, but it's definitely getting out of hand."

"Septimus was talking about the situation with Charlus and Harfang when Charlus reminded him of Family Black's status, and the fact we have primacy over pretty much every family save the Potters and Longbottoms themselves." And one or two other families, but that was it.

Arcturus was not slow to figure out where this was going. "He wants me to use the family influence on the married members of the family, and drag the various Families into alignment with each other."

Cedrella nodded. "They're aware that not everyone will go Light, or even Dark, but it will serve to eliminate a lot of the smaller factions if the families are forced to take definite sides, and we're really the only ones who can do it."

"And hopefully with fewer factions, the arguing will lessen and something might be accomplished." Arcturus said with a nod. "I'll start figuring out how to apply the heat and hopefully put it into action before Samhain. With any luck the winter sessions will be less antagonistic."

"Have you any plans in mind with which to deal with Orion and Walburga?" Cedrella asked, meaning punishing them for their rather obvious guilt in the matter of Sirius' death.

"I've been running options through my mind." Arcturus admitted. "I'm half tempted to force them to remain in their home at all times. Given the custom for heirs, I can potentially remove all their children, if they have them, and raise them myself, to spare them. Though I imagine Orion and Walburga will object if that becomes the case."

Cedrella laughed. "Let them. Condemned to their home, there is little they can do about anything."

They spent the next hour or so gossiping, catching up on all the doings that Arcturus had missed for having kept to himself so much since his ascendance to Head of House. Eventually, Cedrella took her leave, well pleased with her day's work.

She had managed to not only convince Arcturus to move against Orion and Walburga, and put pressure on the other families, she'd made him more aware of the fact that he was, in essence, allowing Orion and Walburga to win in their gambit to control and/or become the Head of the Family. After all, Arcturus had all but become a hermit since his ascendance three years ago, losing no small amount of influence in the Wizengamot and weakening the Black Family's power and ties to the other families. It would take time and effort to repair that damage, but nowhere near as much as it could have if things had remained the way they were.

Arcturus was as good as his word. Better, actually. It became clear that he had begun to move on Cedrella's suggestions by the end of September, never mind Samhain. The politically weakest Families began to better align themselves with the major players, reducing the number of factions by two or three just in that couple of weeks.

Better still, a letter was circulated to the family members, indicating that Orion and Walburga were being forcibly secluded and bound to their home until Arcturus said otherwise for acting against the Family, and that all communications with them were to be stopped immediately. Arcturus included a note in Cedrella's letter saying that he had assigned one of the Black Family elves to do all of Orion and Walburga's shopping, and that he'd had their floo cut off so they had no contact with anyone. He'd also gotten into contact with Alphard, who had then moved in with Arcturus and his wife to learn what he needed to know in case he ended up becoming the future Head of the family.

In short, Family Black was back in the game after nearly five years' absence, Since Sirius had become a less than effective Head long before his death. From Septimus' reports about the changes this brought in the Wizengamot, it was clear to Cedrella that a lot of people were not happy about the return. Especially Dumbledore. Evidently, Dumbledore had begun to look very sour as people began to align more and more. Cedrella didn't know what that man was up to, but she sincerely hoped that the Blacks putting pressure on the families put a massive spanner in the works.

Cedrella didn't get too much time to contemplate the hellery that Arcturus was instigating by exercising his rightful influence. Raising three young boys was rather time consuming. Not that she minded.

Of the three, Arthur had definitely inherited his father's fairly phlegmatic temperament. He'd rarely fussed without reason as an infant, and toddler tantrums had been equally rare. Phillip, at three, was far more cantankerous than Arthur had been on his worst day, showing early signs of having a more typically Weasley temper. Marcus was far too young yet to know where he would fall in the temperament stakes.

It was rather early to be thinking such things, but Cedrella was quietly of the opinion that Arthur would make nearly as ideal a future Head as Septimus had. Aside from a more even temper, Arthur had inherited his father's work ethic, applying himself surprisingly industriously for a five year old to his lessons.

Cedrella and Septimus both had been taking great care to present certain things neutrally. Traditionally, the familial Sorting, if one House predominated, was presented as the only acceptable Sorting, and the qualities of the other Houses vilified to varying degrees. Cedrella and Septimus were consciously trying to avoid that, trying to instill in Arthur and Phillip (Marcus would learn this as well when he was old enough to absorb such lessons) that the qualities of the Houses were neither bad nor good, and that whatever House would be fine. She sincerely doubted it would alter the Weasley heritage of Sorting Gryffindor, but at the very least, their boys would be more inclined to not look down their noses at the members of the other Houses, which could only help them.

Or, well, it would help them if things could get straightened out. The way things were at the moment, making friends outside of one's House at Hogwarts was probably a quick route to becoming a pariah. It had certainly been heading that route even when she'd been attending, and it hadn't seemed to get any better from what they'd been hearing from younger family members.


	23. Divisions

Divisions

(_)(_)(_)

1959 – 1961

Arcturus' crackdown had the desired results. While it deepened and strengthened the splits between Light, Neutral, and Dark, it also simplified the battlefield the Wizengamot had become into four large factions with more or less united causes, rather than a dozen or more small factions. They had even begun to get more done than arguing. Not much, granted, but more than they had when the Wizengamot was so divided.

Dumbledore remained their largest stumbling block. It was entirely due to him that the Light siders remained split into two factions, rather than one. The man was a gifted orator, and a superb actor. He'd begun to cultivate a very grandfatherly and wise appearance and demeanor, and unfortunately it was working incredibly well. Septimus and Cedrella both could do little more than shake their heads in dismay as more and more people fell or the act. Because that was exactly what it was. Septimus didn't know exactly what end-game Dumbledore was working towards, but he was working towards something.

Ok, that was a bit of a lie. Septimus had a fair idea of what Dumbledore was up to. The slow gathering of power was kind of telling. It was pretty clear that Dumbledore wanted to rule the UK Wizarding World. The only thing that remained in question was what exactly his agenda would be if he did end up ruling them. Dumbledore gave every appearance of being the opposite of the Dark families and their anti-Muggle/Muggleborn agenda, but Septimus wasn't entirely sure that was the truth.

Worryingly, more and more rumors about thing in Hogwarts were making the rounds. None of it was good, either. The tales of changes in the curriculum for the worse were the biggest concern. It had also become clear that for whatever reason, Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers never returned for a second year anymore. Of a far more subtle concern to Septimus and Cedrella was the news that Samhain and Yule were no more. It was now Halloween and Christmas. On the face of it, it was not an overt concern. They were, after all, the same holidays, right? Except for the fact that the change in names came with a change from the traditional Magical celebrations to the Muggle versions thereof. It had largely been hailed as progressive step forward toward better relations with Muggleborns and their Muggle parents because of that.

Neither Septimus nor Cedrella agreed with that opinion, if for slightly different reasons. Cedrella deplored and grieved the loss of yet more traditions after the loss of the Children's Ball. Septimus thought that losing the traditional celebrations was doing the Muggleborn students absolutely no favors. They needed to learn that while the Wizarding world was anachronistic compared to the Muggle world, not all of it was because Wizards were contrary and backwards. Some of it was due to that, certainly, but not all of it.

Muggleborns' only exposure to Wizarding traditions and the reasons for them prior to graduation came from Hogwarts. By ending the traditional celebrations, they were missing out on learning about that. Most Muggleborns would be unlikely to seek to correct the lack as adults. Therein lay the problem.

Septimus wasn't fool enough to think that wasn't deliberate. For some reason, Dumbledore wanted to make the situation between purebloods and muggleborns worse. Without that grounding in traditions, most muggleborns would never discover or understand the deeper connections with magic that were made possible and/or encouraged by the traditional celebrations. Worse, their ignorance would annoy the purebloods and deepen the resentment aimed at Muggleborns.

To say he and Dumbledore had come to loggerheads over the issue was to understate the point. Septimus remained intractable and, to the bafflement of many of the Light-siders and everyone else, consistently voted against practically every bill Dumbledore brought forward. Weasleys had been Light-side for longer than Hogwarts had existed. For Septimus to apparently break with that and become effectively Neutral baffled practically everyone. Unfortunately, it did not seem to sound an alarm about Dumbledore and his motives, or if it did, Dumbledore successfully soothed them.

Arcturus spent most of his time in the Wizengamot with the Marauders. Just his presence lent their cause, and the Neutral party, more weight. That he had apparently shifted sides as well, becoming Neutral rather than Dark, baffled nearly as many people as Septimus defecting to the Neutral party.

Ironically enough, the Neutral party had nearly as many members these days as did Dumbledore. Most of the Neutrals that had come over in the last few years had done so more out of irritation with the hardliners on either side than because of pressure from Black family members or any truly Neutral leanings. They were just exasperated with the constant wrangling the extremists indulged in.

Late in 1959, it became necessary for Arcturus to enact the 'heir plan', as Orion and Walburga managed to procreate and produced a son. Arcturus managed to have young Sirius, who had been named to honor his unfortunate namesake, for a whole month before Dumbledore found out about it and attempted to intervene.

Septimus got a blow-by blow description of the resultant argument from Arcturus a few days later. It resulted in Dumbledore leaving with his tail tucked firmly between his legs, much to Septimus' amusement. Though really, why Dumbledore thought he could possibly have any say in the situation confounded him.

Two months later, Dumbledore attempted to bring forward legislation restricting a Head's powers. Septimus didn't even have to try to rally support to vote the bill down. Dumbledore got shouted down before he'd even finished reading the thing. It had been a spectacularly ill-thought-out move by the man - rather out of character for his established pattern, to be honest. Septimus figured that Arcturus taking Sirius had forced Dumbledore to hurry his plan for some reason. That did not bode well for what Dumbledore's eventual plans were, if he'd had in mind to try to control the Family Heads somehow.

Septimus had been more than a little amused when Cedrella found herself visiting Arcturus frequently in the wake of him taking custody of Sirius. With their own children long past the infant stage at that point, she had found she dearly missed having a little one to cuddle and coo at. Arcturus and his wife, both being older, were more than happy to let her watch Sirius fairly frequently. All of them were watching Sirius closely for any problems thanks to the closeness of his parents' blood relation. Fortunately, he had escaped any blatantly obvious physical deformities, but there was always the possibility of something more subtle that would show up later.

In January of nineteen sixty, the next Marauder generation was finally completed, as Charlus and Dorea finally managed to have a child, a boy they named James. There was much celebrating among the Marauders, as James' appearance was much desired and had been long in coming. Septimus quickly found himself having to reign in Charlus' tendency to want to spoil James rotten.

"I understand the impulse, brother, but you'll be doing your son no favors doing that." Septimus told him one day. "He'll grow up to be a menace, like Abraxas' boy."

Charlus had made a horrified face. Septimus, of course, had known that argument would work where all others might fail due to Potter stubbornness. The end of the Children's Ball had resulted in the end of the rule that children were not to appear in public until they'd attended the Ball. While most people didn't really mind meeting the new generation earlier, for some of them it was definitely a bad thing. Abraxas' son Lucius was a menace of the first order, and had made a rather bad impression all around on his trips out and about. The threat of having his own son turn out like that was more than enough to see Charlus reigning in his tendency to spoil James.

Nineteen sixty-one brought its own big change to the Weasley family. Namely, Arthur got his Hogwarts letter. Septimus wasn't entirely happy about it – it seemed like only yesterday he'd held a newborn Arthur in his arms. He grumbled more than a little about children growing up faster than they ought to, much to Cedrella's evident amusement.

"And you laughed when I started watching Sirius. Now who misses having little children about?" Cedrella asked.

Septimus huffed at her. "It's entirely different, woman." He mock-argued, unable to keep from grinning a little at her in abashed amusement at himself. "And I'll thank you to remember that."

"Of course, my dear. I do apologize." Cedrella said with mock contrition, all the while giving him a look that promised retribution later.

Septimus wouldn't have had it any other way. He dearly enjoyed their 'arguments', and the 'retribution' and 'making up' after. It kept life interesting, and they both knew it wasn't serious. They only very rarely argued in all seriousness, and those arguments had a markedly different tone. For one, there was a whole lot more yelling when they were arguing seriously.

The trip to Diagon Alley was a bit more hectic than usual. The pureblood families had enjoyed a bumper crop of children after the Grindlewald/World War Two, much the same as many of the Muggle countries involved in World War Two had. As a result, there were quite a number of children of varying ages running around the Alley in late August, of all blood statuses.

It was now that their early husbandry with their finances was bearing fruit. The Weasley coffers hadn't been this full in a very, very long time. While they were not in the same financial bracket that the Potters, Longbottoms, and Blacks enjoyed, they were not all that far from it. Not that anyone would notice on first look, though. Septimus and Cedrella were still very careful with their money, and only ever bought what they truly needed, even if they bought it of a better quality than they had before.

As a result, Arthur was going to Hogwarts better equipped than Septimus himself had been, a sight that made everything Septimus had done over the last few decades more than worth it. Arthur was going to be going to Hogwarts with all-new equipment and clothing, a first for a Weasley since disaster struck.

Arthur, true to his easy-going personality, managed to make several friends during their trip. He even exchanged contact information with two of them, one a pureblood (the Cornfoot scion), another a completely overwhelmed and confused Muggleborn.

Septimus had made sure their children could comfortably deal with the Muggle world via a number of field trips and encouraging them to earn spending money the same way he had – by doing chores for the elderly and less-able muggles in the nearest village. Phillip and Marcus were mostly indifferent about the whole thing, complying with Septimus' directive but not really invested in it. Arthur, on the other hand, was utterly fascinated, and pleased to spend time in the Muggle world. As a result of that and his newfound Muggleborn friend, Septimus and Cedrella didn't see much of him the last few weeks of August. He was always begging to be allowed to visit his friend. Both Septimus and Cedrella had been rather amused and quite willing to permit the visits.

Their amusement quadrupled once Arthur was at Hogwarts. They learned from Arthur's first letter home that the Marauders were not only still known, but apparently still active. Better, somehow the group had managed to retain its anti-bully policy, rather than becoming nothing but a group of pranksters acting at random. Interestingly, it seemed to have become something of a tradition to tell the incoming first years about it on the train to Hogwarts - a combined reassurance and warning, Septimus supposed.

From a later letter, they learned that the torch was apparently passed from one generation to the next, usually from sixth years to second or third years. At least, that was what Arthur managed to find out when he'd managed to organize his roommates in Gryffindor into a Marauders group and they got found out by the existing Marauder group. Arthur had even managed not to blab that he was the son of one of the first Marauders, though Septimus would have given real money to see the expressions on their successors' faces. Apparently, the 'First Marauders' were all but worshipped in certain circles.

The reason for that worship was rather easy to figure out. From Arthur's letters, it was clear the bully situation had only gotten worse since Septimus and Cedrella's day. The bullies were essentially operating under Dumbledore's beneficence, as he refused to punish as harshly as some of the rules being broken demanded. It wasn't like these kids were ten minutes late for curfew or anything. Broken bones and week-long stays in the infirmary were apparently very common results of the bullies' actions. It had been bad enough to drive Arthur to reform the Marauders in his first year, despite Septimus advising him to wait until second year if he could.

Arthur came home for Yule sporting several bruises from a fight that broke out on the train home thanks to several of those bullies. Septimus had shaken his head in dismay at the sight – not because Arthur had fought back, but because it was necessary. Clearly, Hogwarts was out of control.


	24. Trouble Rising

Trouble Rising

(_)(_)(_)

1961 – 1965

Arcturus ended up re-enacting the 'heir plan' the very last day of nineteen sixty-one, when Orion and Walburga produced a second son that Arcturus named Regulus. This time, Dumbledore didn't try to interfere.

Septimus never asked, but he was fairly sure in later years that Arcturus hexed or potioned one or both of the crazy pair sterile to keep them from reproducing a third time. The risks were too great, and it wouldn't have been Orion and Walburga paying the price, but their children.

Both Sirius and Regulus had escaped obvious problems, but another child might not be so lucky. No one deserved to struggle through life with serious physical or mental problems because their parents were complete idiots. It was best to prevent the problem entirely once they'd proven they could and would reproduce fairly easily.

Things in the Wizengamot were both better and worse. While the faction-based arguing had reduced considerably, the unfortunate result of the deeper, clearer split in the Wizengamot was that the Dark siders were becoming more effective. They were also becoming sneakier, though they lacked a truly gifted orator like Dumbledore as leader in the Wizengamot. They were every bit as bad about trying to sneak legislation past the rest of the Wizengamot at the bottom of otherwise sensible and sane bills as Dumbledore was.

The end result was that the Neutrals were expending all their energy stopping the extremists' legislation, and were largely unable to introduce their own. Every bill was examined in minute detail, and the disagreeable portions that were snuck in were pointed out to the opposing side, with as much of a 'do you really want to let this happen?' twist as they could manage, to vote the bill down. Sometimes they were able to convince enough of the extremist families to vote accordingly that it was enough to keep a bill with an unfortunate rider from passing. Other times it wasn't, and all they could do was watch as more and more of their way of life was eroded, to one extreme or the other.

By far the most unfortunate rider was one that the Dark side managed to get through, mostly by dint of the Light-siders not quite thinking it through despite the Neutrals' attempts to educate them. That rider introduced the 'illegal to do magic outside of school until of age' law, and provided for the creation of an 'underage magic' department in the Ministry.

The Light-siders presumed (wrongly) that the law would level the playing field between Muggleborns and those raised in Wizarding families. They didn't stop to realize that it was impossible for anyone to tell who did magic in a magical area or a thoroughly warded home, even with wands spelled to notify the Ministry.

Worse, the purebloods would either know or quickly find ways to remove the tracking spells on their childrens' wands that the law proposed as a way to track magic done outside of school. Heck, worse came to worse, they could just give their kids a compatible heirloom wand from the family vaults to use during the summer.

This effectively meant that the Wizard raised could and would do magic prior to Hogwarts and during the summer, while the Muggleborns would lose months of needed practice time in the summers, and quite possibly be unable to complete certain homework assignments at all, if the teachers forgot themselves and assigned their students the task of mastering a spell or potion over the summer. It also deepened the divide between the Muggleborns and their Muggle families thanks to the complete inability to truly share and show what they were learning.

More interestingly, Septimus had noticed it before, but it was becoming more and more clear that the Dark-side families were being led by someone. These days, it was becoming clear that the leader wasn't someone in the Wizengamot, which presented all kinds of interesting information. It meant, to Septimus, that whoever their leader was, he wasn't a pureblood. There had been a very, very rare few pureblood families that didn't have representation in the Wizengamot throughout history, but Septimus didn't think that was the case with this particular leader.

The Gaunts came immediately to mind as one of the more recent cases of lack of representation in the Wizengamot. That family had all but lost their family magic due to truly criminal levels of inbreeding and unfitness of any of their male heirs to assume Headship. There were persistent rumors of brothers and sisters marrying in that family – and not just once, but repeatedly. The last time that family had someone who qualified to stand as Head, never mind had a seat in the Wizengamot, had been nearly two centuries ago. The family had eventually died out completely a few years back, with the deaths of the last members of the family.

The clues that the Dark-side leader wasn't a pureblood were few and subtle. They mostly evidenced themselves in a slight change over time in how the Dark-side purebloods were celebrating Samhain, Yule, and Beltane. Septimus had overheard discussions of the celebrations often enough to note that certain aspects of the celebrations had been phased out – aspects that purebloods knew about and adhered to, but a non-pureblood might not, and might not think to include if they were celebrating with followers. That would eventually have something of a trickle-down effect, depending on just how good the leader was, resulting in the purebloods eventually discontinuing those portions in their private celebrations.

What both irked and amused the hell out of Septimus was that the purebloods apparently hadn't caught on to the true origins of their leader. There was absolutely no indication they thought this person less than a pureblood. Septimus supposed that the person was another Dumbledore to manage it, which fit with the way the Dark-side families were managing to work in the Wizengamot now.

Speaking of Dumbledore, by nineteen sixty-five, the man was incredibly close to more or less owning the hearts of the general wizarding populace. He'd managed to craft his image with such skill that the number of people who hadn't fallen for it (for good or ill) could probably be counted on one hand. Even most of the Neutrals were swallowing his sales pitch. It was completely exasperating. These days, suggesting that Dumbledore might not be correct was terrifyingly close to sacrilege. Dumbledore was the Leader of the Light. He had a phoenix familiar. He was all-wise and infallible.

Never mind the fact that it was impossible for a phoenix to be a true familiar. Yes, they could (and did) accompany sufficiently Light-aligned persons for the length of their lives, but it that wasn't a familiar bond. Septimus was still trying to figure out why people were falling for the phoenix-familiar story.

True familiars were rare, which had probably helped with the perception. Only perhaps one in a hundred wizards would acquire a true familiar at some point in their lives. Such creatures were always magical, their lifespans linked to those of their chosen wizard. They never outlived their wizard, though they always lived longer than their breed normally did thanks to the bond with their wizard. That bond rendered them essentially unkillable for their wizard's lifetime, though they could be gravely wounded. Phoenixes were essentially immortal and that prevented them from being able to be familiars.

It worried Septimus that Dumbledore's phoenix hadn't been seen in public in roughly a decade now. It seemed that Dumbledore had gotten the mileage he needed out of its near-constant presence in the early days and ceased to cart it about. It was evidently still around – more than one parent whose child had been called into the Headmaster's office had mentioned their child reporting its presence – but that wasn't all that reassuring. Septimus was still more than slightly convinced that Dumbledore had managed to coerce the poor creature somehow. Unfortunately, he had no way of finding out for sure, nor of freeing the poor thing if that was the case. He didn't exactly have access to the man's office, after all. None of their children were overt troublemakers, and were thus unlikely to be called in to speak with Dumbledore. And if they weren't called in to speak with Dumbledore, their parents wouldn't be called in either.

Septimus discovered near the end of Arthur's second year that he was slightly mistaken about that assumption. It turned out that Dumbledore could and would call kids into his office for reasons other than extreme malfeasance. Arthur reported to his parents that Dumbledore had called him into his office shortly after the end of second year exams, ostensibly to talk to Arthur about his third year elective choices.

"But dad, he really didn't spend much time at all talking about that. Hardly any really. Though he did try to talk me out of Muggle Studies." Arthur pouted a bit when he reported that. "Which I really want to take. He seemed more interested in fishing for information about you and mom. And a little about Uncle Arcturus and little Sirius and Regulus."

Arcturus was, of course, not actually Arthur's uncle, but it was simpler to use that designation, especially considering how much time the two families spent around each other. Marcus, their youngest, was young enough to be a viable playmate for both Sirius and Regulus, as there was only a few years between them. Phillip was just enough older than them to disdain hanging around babies, while Arthur didn't mind babysitting in the least. As a result, they spent a lot of time in Arcturus' company these days. All the Marauders did, as Frank and James, who were closer to Sirius and Regulus' ages than Septimus and Cedrella's boys, had become fast friends with them.

It didn't surprise Septimus in the least that Dumbledore was fishing for information. The gulf between himself and Dumbledore was such that they never spoke amiably, and Dumbledore was thus deprived of virtually all first-hand information about Septimus and Cedrella's plans and doings. Arcturus similarly would have nothing to do with the man.

"I didn't tell him anything." Arthur said, then giggled. "Not like I could, really. I mean, yeah, we talk in letters and stuff, but it's mostly about school and how it's going, how my friends are doing, that sort of thing."

That would, Septimus knew, change in a few years, once Arthur was a bit older. It would become time to start letting Arthur be aware of the activities and decisions Septimus participated in as Head of the Family, as a primer to the more involved lessons regarding politics and their associated shenanigans that Arthur would be dealing with when he came of age. Those particular lessons Septimus planned to leave to Cedrella. Even several decades on, she was the better at understanding that minefield of the pair of them, and he depended heavily on her advice. He honestly couldn't ask for a better tutor for his son and heir in that field, and unlike a number of other patriarchs, he wasn't anywhere stupid enough to disdain Cedrella's knowledge and ability just because she was female.

The good news about Dumbledore's curiosity came with Arthur's next comment.

"I don't like him much, really. Dumbledore, I mean." Arthur told Septimus. "He … I dunno, dad, but he sort of really favors Gryffindors. A lot. He gives out points like they're candy, despite being Headmaster and not really, you know, involved in the teaching and stuff. And he's all but going mad trying to figure out who the Marauders are, trying to stop them – despite the fact they only target the bullies that make everyone else's lives a misery. Fabian and Gideon warned me'n my roommates to learn Occlumency as soon as we can – apparently, it's been suspected for years that Dumbledore's a Legilimens. I think they might be right – he didn't seem too happy when I didn't want to look him in the eye when he had me in his office."

Well, at least Arthur was forming a less-than-sterling opinion of Dumbledore all on his own. It was a relief to Septimus. He hadn't wanted to contemplate trying to unscrew his son's thinking where that man was concerned if he started worshipping Dumbledore like so many did.

It was through Fabian and Gideon Prewitt, sixth years and part of that generation's Marauders, that Arthur met (and swiftly became utterly smitten with) Molly, their younger sister. She was in the same year as Arthur, but Arthur, like most pre-pubescent boys, had more or less ignored her existence for the first few years they were in school together. It wasn't until fourth year that Arthur started having hearts in his eyes where she was concerned.

It helped that she was more than happy to step up and take one of the places her brothers would be vacating in the Marauders. At first, Septimus wasn't entirely sure that Molly would be a good match for Arthur.

Mostly because she had a loud, fierce, vibrant personality that could all too easily overwhelm Arthur's far quieter personality. By the end of their fourth year, though, it was becoming obvious that the blooming friendship-leaning-to-more between them was doing both of them a world of good. Arthur provided an apparently much-needed stabilizing influence for Molly's explosive temperament. Better still, rather than her overwhelming Arthur, she had a tendency to fire him up about things more than he otherwise would have been on his own. She actively encouraged him to voice his opinions and act with more surety, rather than bludgeoning him into agreeing with her opinions about things. If that pattern continued and held true, Septimus would have no problem at all approving of the pairing. However, the eventual fate of their barely-begun romance was yet to be seen.

By late in nineteen sixty-five, it was becoming obvious that Sirius at least was indeed affected by inbreeding, though thanks be to a far lesser degree than anyone had feared might happen. He seemed to have inherited some small measure of the streak of insanity that ran through the Black line, though it was far less marked than what one of his cousins, young Bellatrix, suffered from. Sirius mostly seemed to suffer from unpredictable, uncontrollable mood shifts.

In the muggle world, the diagnosis would have been bipolar disorder, but such things were not known about in the wizarding world, and merely got lumped under the blanket label of 'insanity'. Fortunately, Sirius' mood instability wasn't severe, and Arcturus had begun to teach the boy the rudiments of Occlumency far younger than was normally done in the hopes that the mental discipline would assist in leveling Sirius' moods out. He was also consulting with Healers regarding potions regimens to help with the problem, among other possible solutions.


End file.
